AUGUST 2019 • NAT GEO KIDS (^21)
Cheng I Sao ruled a pirate fleet of nearly 2,000 ships. Sometimes called
Madame Cheng, she turned to crime after she married a famous pirate.
More than 80,000 buccaneers—men, women, and even children—reported
to Madame Cheng. They seized loot in all sorts of ways: selling “protection”
from pirate attacks, raiding ships, and kidnapping for ransom. Madame
Cheng was best known for paying her pirates cash for each head they
brought back from their assaults. (Yikes!)
CHENG I SAO
REIGN OF TERROR South China Sea, 1801-1810
CRIME DOESN’T PAY—USUALLY Every government attempt to stop
Madame Cheng was a failure. Rumor has it that after she retired from piracy,
she started a second career as a smuggler. She died peacefully at age 69.
ES!
Nobody knows Blackbeard’s real name—historians think it might’ve been
Edward Teach—but he’s arguably history’s most famous pirate. He began his
career as a privateer, or a kind of legal pirate, who was hired by the British
government to attack enemy fleets and steal their goods.
Blackbeard abandoned privateering in 1713 and went full-pirate when he
sailed to the Caribbean on a French ship that was gifted to him by another
pirate, adding cannons to the vessel and renaming it Queen Anne’s Revenge.
He terrified his enemies by strapping pistols and knives across his chest
and sticking smoking cannon fuses in his beard. According to legend,
Blackbeard hid a treasure somewhere ... but it’s never been found.BLACKBEARD
REIGN OF TERROR North America’s East Coast and the Caribbean, 1713-1718CRIME DOESN’T PAY A few years into Blackbeard’s time as a pirate, he
was nabbed by the British Navy. They executed him and stuck his head
on the front of a ship as a way to warn wannabe pirates from turning
to the profession.