B4
THE ASTORIAN • SATURDAY, APRIL 3, 2021
Ancient coins may solve pirate mystery
By WILLIAM J. KOLE
Associated Press
WARWICK, R.I. — A
handful of coins unearthed
from a pick-your-own-
fruit orchard in rural Rhode
Island and other random
corners of New England
may help solve one of the
planet’s oldest cold cases.
The villain in this tale:
a murderous English pirate
who became the world’s
most-wanted criminal after
plundering a ship carry-
ing Muslim pilgrims home
to India from Mecca, then
eluded capture by posing as
a slave trader.
“It’s a new history of a
nearly perfect crime,” said
Jim Bailey, an amateur his-
torian and metal detec-
torist who found the fi rst
intact 17th-century Ara-
bian coin in a meadow in
Middletown.
That ancient pocket
change — among the oldest
ever found in North Amer-
ica — could explain how
pirate Capt. Henry Every
vanished into the wind.
On Sept. 7, 1695,
the pirate ship Fancy,
commanded by Every,
ambushed and captured
the Ganj-i-Sawai, a royal
vessel owned by Indian
emperor Aurangzeb, then
one of the world’s most
powerful men. Aboard
were not only the worship-
ers returning from their pil-
grimage, but tens of mil-
lions of dollars’ worth of
gold and silver.
What followed was one
of the most lucrative and
heinous robberies of all
time.
Historical
accounts
say his band tortured and
killed the men aboard the
Indian ship and raped the
women before escaping to
the Bahamas, a haven for
pirates. But word quickly
spread of their crimes, and
English King William III
— under enormous pres-
sure from a scandalized
India and the East India
Company trading giant —
put a large bounty on their
heads.
“If you Google ‘fi rst
worldwide manhunt,’ it
comes up as Every,” Bailey
said. “Everybody was look-
ing for these guys.”
Until now, historians
only knew that Every even-
tually sailed to Ireland in
1696, where the trail went
cold. But Bailey says the
coins he and others have
found are evidence the
notorious pirate fi rst made
his way to the American
colonies, where he and his
crew used the plunder for
day-to-day expenses while
on the run.
The fi rst complete coin
surfaced in 2014 at Sweet
Berry Farm in Middletown,
a spot that had piqued Bai-
ley’s curiosity two years
earlier after he found old
colonial coins, an 18th-cen-
tury shoe buckle and some
musket balls.
Waving a metal detector
over the soil, he got a sig-
nal, dug down and hit literal
paydirt: a darkened, dime-
sized silver coin he initially
Photos by Steven Senne/AP Photo
Amateur historian Jim Bailey uses a metal detector to scan for Colonial-era artifacts in a fi eld in Rhode Island in March.
A 17th century Arabian silver coin, top, that research shows was struck in 1693 in Yemen,
rests near an Oak Tree shilling minted in 1652 by the Massachusetts Bay Colony, below, and a
Spanish half real coin from 1727, right.
‘FOR ME, IT’S
ALWAYS BEEN
ABOUT THE
THRILL OF THE
HUNT, NOT
ABOUT THE
MONEY. THE
ONLY THING
BETTER THAN
FINDING THESE
OBJECTS IS
THE LONG-
LOST STORIES
BEHIND THEM.’
Amateur historian
Jim Bailey
assumed was either Span-
ish or money minted by the
Massachusetts Bay Colony.
Peering closer, the Ara-
bic text on the coin got his
pulse racing. “I thought,
‘Oh my God,’” he said.
Research confi rmed the
exotic coin was minted in
1693 in Yemen. That imme-
diately raised questions,
Bailey said, since there’s
no evidence that Ameri-
can colonists struggling to
eke out a living in the New
World traveled to anywhere
in the Middle East to trade
until decades later.
Since then, other detec-
torists have unearthed 15
additional Arabian 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 Every’s men fi rst came
ashore.
“It seems like some of
his crew were able to settle
in New England and inte-
grate,” said Sarah Sport-
man, state archaeologist
for Connecticut, where one
of the coins was found in
2018 at the ongoing exca-
vation of a 17th-century
farm site.
“It was almost like a
money laundering scheme,”
she said.
Although it sounds
unthinkable now, Every
was able to hide in plain
sight by posing as a slave
trader — an emerging pro-
fession in 1690s New
England. On his way to the
Bahamas, he even stopped
at the French island of
Reunion to get some Black
captives so he’d look the
part, Bailey said.
Obscure records show a
ship called the Sea Flower,
used by the pirates after
they ditched the Fancy,
sailed along the Eastern
seaboard. It arrived with
nearly four dozen slaves in
1696 in Newport, Rhode
Island, which became a
major hub of the North
American slave trade in the
18th century.
“There’s extensive pri-
mary source documentation
to show the American colo-
nies were bases of opera-
tion for pirates,” said Bai-
ley, 53, who holds a degree
in anthropology from the
University of Rhode Island
and worked as an archaeo-
logical assistant on explo-
rations of the Wydah Gally
pirate ship wreck off Cape
Cod in the late 1980s.
Bailey, whose day job
is analyzing security at
the state’s prison complex,
has published his fi nd-
ings in a research journal
of the American Numis-
matic Society, an organiza-
tion devoted to the study of
coins and medals.
Archaeologists and his-
torians familiar with but
not involved in Bailey’s
work say they’re intrigued,
and believe it’s shed-
ding new light on one of
the world’s most enduring
criminal mysteries.
“Jim’s
research
is
impeccable,” said Kevin
McBride, a professor of
archaeology at the Uni-
versity of Connecticut.
“It’s cool stuff . It’s really a
pretty interesting story.”
Mark Hanna, an asso-
ciate professor of history
at the University of Cali-
fornia, San Diego and an
expert in piracy in early
America, said that when he
fi rst saw photos of Bailey’s
coin, “I lost my mind.”
“Finding those coins, for
me, was a huge thing,” said
Hanna, author of the 2015
book, “Pirate Nests and the
Rise of the British Empire.”
“The story of Capt. Every
is one of global signifi -
cance. This material object
— this little thing — can
help me explain that.”
Every’s exploits have
inspired a 2020 book by
Steven Johnson, “Enemy
of All Mankind;” PlaySta-
tion’s popular “Uncharted”
series of video games; and
a Sony Pictures movie ver-
sion of “Uncharted” star-
ring Tom Holland, Mark
Wahlberg and Antonio
Banderas that’s slated for
release early in 2022.
Bailey, who keeps his
most valuable fi nds not
at his home but in a safe
deposit box, says he’ll keep
digging.
“For me, it’s always
been about the thrill of the
hunt, not about the money,”
he said. “The only thing
better than fi nding these
objects is the long-lost sto-
ries behind them.”
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