01x03 - The Tale of John Ward

[bunniefuu]

[Narrator] This is

the story of John Ward,

an aging English sailor

who rose to become

one of the most infamous

pirates of the era,

terrorizing the waters

of the Mediterranean

in the service of the Barbary

corsairs of North Africa.

[Expert 1] It's a pretty

remarkable situation

to go from essentially nothing

to becoming a powerful figure.

[Expert 2] He was increasing

in wealth all the time,

in power, he had hundreds

of men working for him.

[Narrator]

Four centuries later,

his story lives on

in popular culture

as inspiration

for the most famous

fictional pirate

of the 21st century,

Captain Jack Sparrow.

[Expert 2] He did

what he did for himself.

He wasn't bowing

to any authority.

[Narrator] So, how did

a penniless fisherman

leave a legacy that reached

across the Mediterranean

and beyond

to become the pirate king?

♪

♪

John Ward is born near

the small town of Faversham

on the southeast coast

of England.

As a commoner and a fisherman,

his days are spent at sea,

scraping a grueling,

dangerous living

to provide a meager existence

for he and his wife.

[Jo Esra] Fishing was

quite a hard life,

quite hard work

for seasonal returns.

It wasn't always guaranteed

that you would have enough fish

even to feed your family,

let alone sell and make profit.

[Narrator] In 1585,

Ward spots an opportunity.

w*r with Spain is brewing.

And Queen Elizabeth I lacks

the resources to build a navy

to defeat the powerful

Spanish Empire.

Her solution?

Outsource her fleet,

allowing any English sailor

to ravage Spanish ships,

seizing their cargo.

A share of the plunder

must go to the Crown,

but the rest, the men

are allowed to keep.

[Esra] Conditions

for those taking to sea,

ordinary seafarers, if you will,

was incredibly harsh.

It was not guaranteed

that you would get money.

It was a hard life.

It was very risky.

Of course, it was

very dangerous.

You were away for a long time

from your families.

[Narrator] Despite this,

thousands of civilians

take to the sea

in search of their fortune--

seasoned fishermen,

experienced sailors,

but also many men

who had never left dry land.

English law defines these

adventurers as legal raiders,

private men of w*r.

But to the Spanish

merchants who feared attack,

they were simply pirates.

[Esra] The attraction

of privateering or even piracy,

the risks of that were worth it.

[Narrator] John Ward

is amongst those willing

to take such a perilous risk.

Leaving behind an arduous

and unreliable fishing trade,

he spends 18 years at sea

thriving as a privateer.

♪

Queen Elizabeth's death in 1603

brings Ward's rise

to an abrupt halt.

Her successor, King James I,

is determined to restore

peace with Spain.

[Mark Hanna] James was

not a fan of privateering.

In fact, when he was

king of Scotland,

he was constantly annoyed

by the harassment

against Scottish shipping.

And so when he

took over as king,

he made a clear decision

that he was going to eradicate

privateering from England.

[Narrator] Overnight,

private men of w*r

are redefined as criminals,

outlawed by the English Crown.

[Esra] Spain's ships

are to operate unhindered

by privateers,

and he introduces quite severe

punishments for that.

[Hanna] There was no longer

support by the Crown anymore

to perform acts

of violence at sea.

[Connie Kelleher]

You now had official captains

and commanders and men

who were legitimate sailors

now out of, out of work.

And while some of them were able

to find employment elsewhere,

the majority of them had no

recourse but to turn to piracy.

[Narrator] Ward is

unemployed and now age 50.

The battle-scarred sailor's

options are limited--

join the king's navy on

the promise of a small salary,

continue raiding

the Spanish as a pirate

and risk the gallows if caught,

or return to the hard graft

of life as a fisherman.

Ward chooses the navy

and is placed aboard a ship,

the Lyon's Whelp.

[Esra] Naval conditions

aren't great.

The rations are poor.

Pay is low or non-existent.

Discipline is very harsh.

[Richard Blakemore]

For some sailors,

especially young

and inexperienced ones,

going into the navy

might have had advantages.

The ships spent

a lot of time in port

because they were so expensive

that the monarch didn't want

to send them out unless

it was totally necessary,

and the labor was shared out

because naval ships often

had very large crews.

But for an experienced

sailor like Ward,

it would have been

less than ideal.

He could have earned much

higher wages in a merchant ship

or in a plundering ship.

And he could have

had opportunities

to trade or enrich himself

that he wouldn't get

in a naval ship.

♪

[Narrator] Almost immediately,

Ward seems to seriously

regret his decision.

[Esra] Two weeks on,

and Ward really isn't happy.

[Narrator]

Ward hits breaking point.

In a nearby tavern,

a plot is hatched.

He rallies his shipmates,

urging them to abandon the navy

and flee the country.

He's clearly persuasive,

convincing them

that they will be free men

upon reaching the high seas.

Led by Ward, the deserters

decide to steal a small ship

from Portsmouth Harbor.

[Esra] This is

quite a risky endeavor.

If they're caught, there

would be severe punishment.

[Blakemore] Desertion

is a crime in martial law

and seizing a barque

and sailing off is piracy.

But Ward knows there are

great opportunities out there.

[Narrator] Ward and his men

creep through the harbor,

overpower two watchmen,

and seize control of the ship.

Weighing anchor,

they set out to sea--

these deserters

from the English Navy

now seafaring criminals labeled

by the authorities as pirates.

[Blakemore] Shortly

after setting sail,

Ward is chosen as captain by

the men who've accompanied him.

So, pirates certainly had

more say over who is in charge

than you would get

on a navy ship

where the commanders were

appointed by the state.

To be chosen so quickly shows

that Ward must have been able

to persuade and lead

those who had followed him.

And indeed, he apparently

persuaded them

to steal the barque

in the first place.

And I think it also

speaks to his experience

as a navigator and as a sailor.

They must have respected that

he would be able to take them

where they wanted to go.

♪

[Esra] They steal a ship

called the Violet.

And then they decide to sail off

to the Mediterranean.

♪

[Narrator] By 1603, the area

is made up of a patchwork

of feuding states and societies

with high levels of piracy.

Conflict rages

between the Muslim states

of the Ottoman Empire

and the Christian

principalities

of southern Europe,

with much of the fighting

taking place at sea.

Because of this,

the region offers

major opportunities for Ward.

[Blakemore] He knows that

the Mediterranean is a center

of really lucrative trade

between cities like Venice

and Genoa, Aleppo, Izmir.

And he knows that there are

plunderers already active

in the Mediterranean.

There is the corso, the conflict

between Islam and Christianity

from which we get

the word "corsair,"

and various ports

in the Mediterranean

are sending out raiders

to capture shipping.

So, Ward knows that if he heads

for the Mediterranean,

he's going to be able

to get in on this scene.

[Harcourt Fuller] If you look

at the geography

of the Mediterranean world

and North Africa,

you have areas where pirates

could have found a safe haven.

[Blakemore] By the time Ward

arrives in the Mediterranean,

certain ports have

become particular centers

for maritime raiding.

Places like Salé

on the Atlantic coast

of Morocco,

Algiers, Tripoli, and Tunis

on the north coast of Africa.

And also Malta.

[Narrator] To survive,

Ward needs ships.

He begins to build his fleet,

stealing a 32-g*n

Dutch flyboat.

Rather than k*lling the crew,

Ward forces them to sail home

in his own far smaller vessel.

He renames

the captured ship the Gift.

His career as a Mediterranean

pirate is under way.

[Esra] Pirates took ships

through shock-and-awe tactics,

so they might battle

with the ship,

but quite often,

it was drawing up alongside

and just being so violent

and so aggressive,

you know, the hope was

that people would surrender.

[g*nf*re]

So, he's off pirating

around the Mediterranean,

taking an increasing

number of ships.

And these ships have cargo--

luxury goods, textiles, cotton,

velvet, silk, spices, dyes.

Anything that is being traded

through the Mediterranean

region, Ward is taking.

So, the ships that were used

in the Mediterranean region

were fast sail ships,

xebecs, for example,

so, square rigged lateens.

And these also had people on

oars; it wasn't just sail power.

[Narrator] After months at sea

and with a small fleet

at his command,

Ward now searches

for a friendly port

to unload his stolen cargo.

[Blakemore] Ward heads

first for Algiers,

which he knows is one of these

major centers for plundering.

The problem is

that an English pirate

has very recently attacked ships

in the harbor of Algiers,

so English sailors are

not particularly popular.

And when Ward sails in,

he's arrested and threatened

with the death penalty.

♪

He manages to talk

or, indeed, buy his way out

by offering the plunder

that he already has in his hold,

so he loses everything that

he's got from the voyage so far

except the ships themselves.

That means he can keep on going,

and he sails on to Tunis,

where he gets a much

more favorable reception

from the local ruler.

♪

[Narrator] 1605.

Ward sails into Tunis,

a city ruled over by the feared

former soldier Kara Osman Dey,

leader of a powerful

guild of corsairs,

elite North African pirates

who prey on ships

across the Mediterranean.

[Blakemore] When Ward

sails into Tunis,

the dey sees an opportunity.

[Esra] Kara Osman pays a quarter

towards stocking Ward's ship,

puts some of his own men

on the ship,

and the agreement is that Ward

will sell the stolen goods

to Kara Osman,

who will store them

and then sell them back

to English merchants

at a huge profit.

[Narrator] Ward

and Kara Osman have a deal.

The dey would take a percentage

of any goods captured.

And with the former

soldier's backing,

Ward could begin

to establish his name

as one of the most notorious

pirates in the Mediterranean.

Ward and his fleet set sail

alongside

North African corsairs,

attacking and seizing

vulnerable ships.

[Esra] Ward confines

his activities

to the Mediterranean region.

He doesn't venture

out of the Mediterranean

to go further afield to pirate.

He has rich pickings

where he is.

He's ideally situated

for Christian shipping.

[Blakemore] The corsairing

vessels, the xebecs,

are well-known

in the Mediterranean.

But here is a European ship

with a European crew,

so he may be able

to approach target vessels

without arousing suspicion.

And this is

a really useful advantage

when plundering

in these shipping lanes.

[g*nsh*t]

[Esra] Ward would have

a small fleet of ships,

but these would have

been, you know,

merchant ships

that he would capture,

that they would have then

put ordnance on them

and armed them and made them

into his men of w*r.

♪

[Narrator] 1606.

Having left Tunis, Ward spots

and seizes a merchant vessel.

♪

[Blakemore] He encounters a ship

called the John the Baptist,

which he renames

the Little John,

almost certainly

a reference to Robin Hood,

that great hero of the

oppressed and the downtrodden,

who was very popular

in this era.

Just as he did with his

naval shipmates in Plymouth,

Ward now persuades

the crew of the Little John

to stay with him.

He must have had

a great style of talking.

He must have been able to compel

and encourage these people

to follow him

in his piratical career.

[Narrator] Yet again, Ward

uses his powers of persuasion,

convincing the crew

of this merchant ship

to join him

in a life of piracy.

[Esra] This feeds into a sort

of latent narrative about Ward

that he is an outlaw,

an antihero,

somebody who

is taking on authority

and actually to the benefit of

the poorer sections of society.

And what we certainly

have is evidence

that he was paying

to release captives.

He would help out

poor English sailors

that found themselves

in difficulty.

And he was recruiting and

making wealthy ordinary sailors.

Ordinary seafarers

would have seen his successes

as well as heard about them.

He would have had

English sailors,

he would have had Dutch sailors,

and he would have had

Islamic sailors.

There is, of course,

evidence that he is a leader,

that he is keeping

his crew together.

His life really is focused

on his ships, his crew, his men,

gathering more wealth,

and his pirating activity.

[Narrator] Only

a few years have passed

since his flight from the navy,

but Ward is now rich

and successful,

and yet he still wants more.

♪

[Blakemore] Once he's

captured the Little John,

Ward goes on to capture

several other ships,

including the Rubi

and the Carminati,

both Venetian ships,

both very valuable.

And he brings these

back to Tunis,

and this only raises

his standings with the dey.

With the support of the dey,

Ward fits out four ships--

the Little John, the Rubi,

the Carminati and the Gift.

He's provided with cannons,

with swords, with muskets,

with all of the tools

of the pirating trade.

While these preparations

were ongoing,

Ward and his men

would have been leading

something of a high life

in Tunis.

This was a cosmopolitan port.

It was a trading port

as well as supporting corsairs.

There would have been

merchant ships.

There would have been people

from all over the Mediterranean

rubbing shoulders on the docks.

And so these sailors

would have found it very easy

to get along in this society.

They were used to

places like this,

and they just got

a lot of plunder,

so they had cash

in their pockets.

There were lots

of different things

they could have found

to do with that cash.

There would have been taverns,

there would have been brothels,

there were probably

other kinds of intoxicant drugs

available as well.

But that's not the whole story,

because they may have

established links

with the local community.

They may have made friends.

Some of them may have married.

Ward builds up

his position in Tunis

through his relationship

with the dey.

The dey gives him

a place to stay

and also a role

in the treasury,

which might to us seem like a

strange job to give to a pirate,

but the economy

of these cities

was so heavily involved

in maritime raiding

that actually it probably

made a lot of sense

because Ward was contributing

to the treasury

on each voyage where

he brought back more plunder.

[Narrator] Ward and

Kara Osman Dey grew close.

To his friends,

Captain John Ward

goes by "Jack."

But legends say the dey

had another nickname for him.

Ward has a tattoo on his arm,

the classic mariners' image

of a swallow given to sailors

when they've traveled

5,000 nautical miles.

But the swallow

is unknown to the dey,

so instead,

he calls him Sparrow,

Captain Jack Sparrow.

♪

Following months

of preparation,

Ward sails from Tunis

with a fleet of four ships.

They're headed

for a busy Adriatic Sea,

on the promise

of merchant ships

bound to or from Venice,

one of the wealthiest

states on the globe.

But they're hit

by a ferocious storm.

Two boats are lost.

Ward and the survivors

press on.

April 26, 1607.

Ward spots an enormous vessel.

It's the Reniera e Soderina,

one of the finest and largest

ships in the Venetian fleet,

carrying passengers

and a huge cargo of valuables.

[Esra] Cargo from the Soderina

was estimated to be worth

up to two million pounds.

This consisted of textiles,

luxury goods, cotton, silk,

indigo, you know, dyes,

spices such as cinnamon.

Clearly this was a huge amount

of cargo for Ward.

It was a huge coup for Ward.

[Narrator] Designed

to be pirate-proof,

the sheer size and firepower

of the mighty Soderina

is a deterrent

to those used to preying

on smaller, lighter vessels.

But Captain John Ward

is not your average pirate.

Despite having lost half

his fleet, he opts to attack.

♪

A gentle wind blows that day,

not enough to shift

the massive Soderina,

but plenty to move Ward's ships

to within firing range.

[Esra] This was

quite easy for Ward

to kind of draw up alongside.

[Narrator] Ward opens fire.

Cannonballs splinter the hull.

The Venetians fire back,

but Ward is already

on the move,

skillfully

traversing the waves,

shifting his ships

out of range.

For three bruising hours,

he pummels the Soderina,

before ordering his men

to stand by to board.

In a desperate dash

to the quarterdeck,

the Soderina's survivors

prepare to repel the pirates.

A moment before he issues

the command to attack,

Ward calls for his gunners to

fire off a round of chain shot.

[Blakemore] A chain shot

is two cannonballs

combined with a chain,

and it's a particular weapon

used to damage

masts and rigging.

[cannon fire]

[Narrator] Tearing through

the Soderina's rigging,

its men are thrown

30 feet to their deaths.

Others are ripped to pieces

in an instant.

Terrified survivors

are cut down by the pirates,

who now board

the disabled ship.

John Ward has just become

master and commander

of one of the finest ships

ever to grace

the Mediterranean Sea

as well

as the sole possessor

of the substantial

wealth it holds.

He has no sense

of the political tempest

he's just unleashed.

[Oliver Finnegan] That is,

in a way, his biggest success.

But it might be the start

of his downfall as well.

♪

[Finnegan] Ward really seems

to achieve a degree of notoriety

when he captures

the Reniera e Soderina.

But the problem he has,

and this is something

you often find with piracy,

is he creates

a diplomatic crisis.

♪

[Narrator] When

the Venetians learn

that their precious Soderina

has been stolen

by an English pirate,

they furiously turn

their gaze to King James,

demanding compensation

for their stolen treasures.

♪

James still fancies himself

the great peacemaker of Europe,

but this renegade fisherman

turned Barbary corsair

has sullied the king's mission.

To prevent a w*r with Venice,

the exasperated monarch

sends a fleet of pirate hunters

into the Mediterranean

in search of Ward.

♪

Sensing danger,

Ward sends a share of goods

stolen from the Soderina

back to England

in an attempt to negotiate

a royal pardon.

[Finnegan] This is common

in a lot of cases of piracy.

If you've got the goods,

you can negotiate

if they give you a pardon.

If you don't have the goods,

then you have absolutely nothing

to negotiate with

if they try and prosecute you.

[Narrator] In Tunis, Ward

finds a ship called the Husband

that's bound for London.

The captain has no idea

his ship is being loaded

with stolen goods.

[Finnegan] While

the ship is in Tunis,

many bundles of goods

are put onto the ship,

along with a lot

of different passengers,

which seem to,

a lot of them, be English,

and they're bringing

a lot of money.

[Narrator] The Husband departs

Tunis on a course for England.

But the Venetians have

figured out Ward's plan.

As the ship nears port, it's

suddenly stopped in its tracks.

[Finnegan] The Venetians

effectively arrange

for the ships to be seized,

and that completely destroyed

any negotiating position

that Ward had with the cargo.

[Narrator] With Ward's

leverage now in the custody

of his Venetian enemies,

King James refuses his pardon,

unwilling to risk w*r

with Venice.

Ward knows he can never again

return home to England.

♪

Despite this setback,

Ward plans a spree of raids

across the Mediterranean

with one of the region's

mightiest weapons now

at his disposal, the Soderina.

Sparing no expense,

he transforms

the merchant vessel

into a deadly battleship,

carving new ports into her hull

to accommodate 70 brass g*ns.

Ward goes on a recruitment

drive, bringing together

a fighting force of

over 400 sailors and soldiers.

They set sail in early 1608,

soon capturing

two English ships

and a French merchant vessel.

But then a storm hits.

[thunder]

The expensive alterations

Ward made have fundamentally

weakened his prized

ship's timbers.

As rain and waves

batter the Soderina,

it begins to break apart.

[Esra] Unfortunately,

the Soderina does sink

with a great loss of life,

so 250 Englishmen and

150 Muslims actually perish

on that ship when it sinks.

♪

[Narrator] Ward is assumed dead

amongst the wreckage.

♪

[waves crashing]

[oars creaking]

But the pirate

is very much alive,

making his careful escape

in one of the smaller

vessels of his fleet.

Returning to Tunis,

he faces a reckoning.

The men who perished aboard

the Soderina are the husbands,

fathers, uncles, and brothers

of many Tunisians.

How did the captain

miraculously survive

whilst their

loved ones perished?

Ward seals himself

in his mansion

to avoid the outrage

of the people,

increasingly dependent on

Kara Osman Dey for protection.

But rather than flee the city

under the cover of darkness,

Ward makes a bold decision.

In 1610, he converts to Islam.

As is custom, he selects

a new Muslim name, Yusuf Reis.

Ward's Christian English life

is over for good.

[Hanna] Essentially,

one just simply

had to renounce one's religion

and could change their name

to become Muslim.

In England, this was considered

one of the worst things

you could ever do

to your community.

You became known as an apostate,

meaning you gave up

your religion,

you gave up your people,

your community, your monarch.

[Blakemore] When Ward

converts to Islam,

this is a really

significant step for him.

It's a rejection of the culture

that he grew up with in England,

and it would have made it

difficult for him

to return to England.

Those sailors who did

return to England

after converting to Islam were

treated with deep suspicion.

Apostasy was a sin against

the Church under Church law,

and so those sailors

had to undergo

a very public humiliation

and penance in order

to reestablish themselves

within English society.

[Narrator] In England,

these converts were

known as renegades,

and John Ward was

one of the most notorious.

[Finnegan] Renegades

are Christians

who've converted to Islam,

and they came to hold some

relatively prominent positions

within the Ottoman Empire.

A lot of them

became ship's captains.

A lot of them became sailors

based out

of Ottoman territories,

like in Algiers or Tunis.

And then they would

convert to Islam.

Second, conversion would

perhaps allow them to enjoy

a degree of prominence locally,

or indeed some

of those conversions

would have been genuine.

[Esra] I don't think he was

doing it for religious purposes.

I don't think he was doing it

to please the Dey of Tunis.

I think he's doing it

to survive.

And he's somebody

who is not willing to accept

his place in life.

You know, he's had 50 years of

pretty much living in poverty,

and that is not the end for him.

[Fuller] In general,

this goes for both

the Islamic world

and the Christian world.

Whenever you're trying

to make inroads

into a civilization

or a culture,

usually in order for you

to conduct business

without much hassle,

you have to convert.

If you were not

a Muslim, in this case,

that means that you,

of course, could be raided,

you could be captured, and you

could even be sold into sl*very

depending on the context.

[Finnegan] By the 1580s, around

50% of the population of Algiers

were renegades,

formerly Christians.

Native Algerians made up

a much smaller section

of the population.

Renegades were a central part

of what we can describe

as corsairing or piracy,

depending upon your perspective,

in the Mediterranean

in that period.

And Ward was one of these.

He gets this interesting title

bestowed on him of Arch-Pirate.

[Narrator] Ward's decision

to convert becomes a source

of speculation, outrage, and

even entertainment in England.

In 1612, a popular

English dramatist

composes a play

about the notorious pirate.

Its title--

A Christian Turned Turk.

[Esra] The play actually

portrays his conversion

not for economic gain

or for social status,

which was quite often

why English sailors

would, would convert to Islam.

But it's actually in the play

portrayed as something romantic,

so he wants to marry

a Muslim woman.

[Hanna] The moment of

significance in the play itself

is Ward's circumcision.

And we know that the audience

at the time would have been

really just taken aback

by this moment.

And it was John Ward's

sort of symbolic gesture

of throwing off his religion.

And in some ways,

it would have been horrifying

to an English community

to see this happen.

[Esra] It would

have been something

that would have enthralled

the audience.

It would have been something

quite taboo to witness.

[Narrator] To some,

Ward is an object of scorn.

But to others,

he's an inspiration.

Hordes of English pirates

set sail for the Mediterranean

in search

of the opulent lifestyle

enjoyed by their hero.

Some even follow Ward

into Islam.

[Esra] The fact

that conversion was seen

as quite a simplistic thing

for somebody to do

over in the Islamic world

would have been terrifying

for the authorities.

It would have been another form

of the Ottoman Empire

taking over, you know,

encroaching on territory

by taking souls.

[Hanna] He kills himself in the

play in a very dramatic fashion.

And what's interesting

is clearly this was written

by the playwright to sort of

dispel the legend

of Ward himself,

to convince people

maybe to not join him

and to realize it's a,

it's a worthless task.

[Narrator]

As Ward's legend grows,

so does his fleet of corsairs.

[Esra] He was increasing in

wealth all the time, in power.

He had hundreds of men

working for him.

[Finnegan] Really he becomes

a kind of admiral

of a private fleet.

[Esra] And I think, you know,

the nature of seafaring

at the time was very much

that his reputation would

spread by word of mouth.

He's very successful.

♪

[Narrator] Ward takes on

an unlikely new career

as a teacher.

He operates what is essentially

an academy for pirates,

instructing the next generation

of Barbary corsairs

on the finer points

of gunnery and navigation.

[Esra] His men look up to him,

and the younger men

are being recruited.

They are learning from Ward,

they are learning

from his years at sea,

and also his operations

with piracy in the region.

[Hanna] One reason why John Ward

is one of the most infamous

pirates in English history

was the fact that he

provided the technology

to North African city-states

that allowed them

to transform ships

that were more

coastal-oriented

to actually be able

to sail out into the ocean.

And for the first time,

corsairs sailed in the Atlantic.

Before John Ward,

North African communities

not only used galleys,

which were ships that

required oars or sweeps,

but one of the reasons

why they plundered for

and to enslave people

was to actually keep

manning those ships,

to be able to provide the labor

to allow those ships

to cruise along coastlines.

[Blakemore] He introduces

North Atlantic sailing ships

to Tunis and the

North African corsairs.

These square rigged round ships

that are so much more effective

in the North Sea

and the Atlantic.

And as a sailor who had spent

much of his career at sea,

as a sailor who's in his 50s

before he becomes a pirate,

Ward would certainly

have been very knowledgeable

about the workings

of these ships.

[Narrator] By 1612,

Ward has retired from piracy

and is enjoying the fruits

of his illicit labor.

He settles into

a life of opulence

in his Tunisian palace,

surrounded by servants

and liberal supplies

of strong alcohol.

The elderly pirate can now

enjoy the hobbies and luxuries

unimaginable for a poor

fisherman from Kent.

[Esra] In 1616, the Scottish

traveler William Lithgow

meets Ward and describes him

living in this amazing palace,

beautified with

alabaster and marble.

And his reputation

is of somebody

who's incredibly successful

at what he does.

He has got an unimaginable

wealth and riches.

It's been said that he sent

money home to his English wife,

but also it seems that he also

married when he was in Tunis,

so had a wife in Tunis as well.

There's reports

towards the end of his life

that he's puttering around

in his palace with his chickens,

and he was obsessed with trying

to incubate eggs in camel dung.

[Narrator] But peace

hasn't come easy.

Hunted for

the past two decades,

the aging arch-pirate

has seen off

assassination attempts

from sea captains, diplomats,

and trained K*llers.

None succeed.

Instead, it's a faceless enemy,

the plague, which

finally captures Ward.

In 1622,

he dies in his palace

at the age of 70,

having enjoyed one of the

longest, most remarkable lives

of any pirate of the era.

[Narrator] Even in death,

Captain John Ward's

legacy continues on.

The North African pirates

he helped train

are more than capable

of sailing

beyond the Mediterranean,

hard-nosed Barbary

sl*ve traders

now operating as far afield

as Northern Europe.

[Fuller] When it comes

to the study of sl*very

in the modern world,

a lot of emphasis is placed

on the transatlantic sl*ve trade

because of the impact

that it had on the Americas

and also on the European powers

that were involved in the trade.

However, there was an Arab

sl*ve trade that took place

long before

the transatlantic sl*ve trade,

which really sort of takes

off in the 16th century,

going into the 17th century.

[Hanna] They would capture

these people and send them

back to the North African

city-states to be enslaved,

to work as labor

either on the forts

or in the harbor itself.

Between 1530 and 1780,

we know there were about

1 to 1.25 million Europeans

enslaved in North Africa.

I think this is important

because it highlighted it

for many

the hypocrisy of African

sl*very within England.

Many were aware that

as people complained bitterly

about their brethren

being enslaved to Africans,

that they themselves

were enslaving Africans.

We also know that there

are stories of corsairs

sailing up the Thames

as far as London,

apparently stealing someone and

kidnapping them from their bed.

[Esra] Many people died.

Many people were enslaved.

Some captives escaped.

Some converted

to Islam like Ward.

[Narrator] In June 1631,

corsairs sail their

square rigged ships to Ireland.

They storm the small harbor

village of Baltimore

in County Cork

in one of the largest,

boldest seizures

of European sl*ves in history.

♪

[Kelleher] As for

the raid on Baltimore,

they captured roughly

109 individuals

who were living

in the village at that stage.

Many of them

were English settlers,

and they were taken off

into the sl*ve markets,

essentially, of Algiers.

White sl*very and white captives

was very much

the cargo of choice

by the corsairs at that stage.

They went in search

of human cargo,

and they captured them,

and they took them back

to feed the sl*ve markets

of North Africa.

♪

[Narrator] In his 70 years,

John Ward lived many lives--

a simple fisherman,

a private man of w*r,

a deserter,

a Barbary corsair, a teacher,

an Englishman, an Ottoman,

a Christian, and a Muslim.

In the eyes of his countrymen,

he was the most infamous

infidel of the age.

But to the men he commanded,

Ward was a marvel

of reinvention,

the ageless pirate who defied

fate and died like a lord.

[Hanna] I think what's important

to understand with John Ward

was the opportunity

that was presented to him,

which was that he could

remain a poor sailor

on the coast of England,

or he could go to North Africa

where you become head of a navy.

It's a pretty remarkable

situation to go

from essentially nothing

to becoming a powerful figure.

He knew how to sail

in the ocean.

He had an understanding

of how to actually

build and construct ships.

It made sense for them

to raise him up

to a position of authority.

It's something he never would

have been able to possess

or probably ever obtain

if he stayed home in England.

He's famous

as a renegade apostate,

someone who left

his community and his religion

for greed, for power.

He was willing to join

a community that represented

the sort of worst of all piracy.

This is one reason why John Ward

was so famous and legendary.

He's not remembered,

I think, today as much,

but during his own time period,

it was, he was extremely famous.

[Narrator] The legend

of John Ward grew

through the work

of playwrights and poets,

whose work was inspired

by the pirate king

for decades to come.

One of the most famous ballads

depicts Ward at the height

of his power and ambition.

In it, he defeats

a mighty English ship,

then gloats

in characteristic fashion,

"Go tell the king of England.

Go tell him thus from me.

If he reigns king

of all the land,

I will reign king at sea."