Rogues and Rebels: Braziliano, Blackbeard, and the Defiant Charles Vane

Roche Braziliano: The Cruel Buccaneer of Port Royal

While Morgan became a legend, other fearsome rogues also stalked Port Royal’s taverns in the mid-17th century. One of the most notorious was Roche Braziliano (also known as Rock Brasiliano), a Dutch pirate whose savage exploits made even his peers tremble. Born in the Netherlands, Roche earned his nickname from time spent in Brazil before he turned to piracy. By the 1660s he arrived in Port Royal and joined the buccaneers as a common seaman.

Bold and popular among the rough Brethren of the Coast, Roche quickly rose to captain his own vessel – allegedly a barque he stole from fellow pirates after leading a mutiny. Between plundering voyages, Roche Braziliano made Port Royal his stomping ground, and he gained a reputation as “one of the most dangerous men in that dangerous city.” When ashore, he would go on drunken rampages through the streets, cutlass in hand, attacking anyone who crossed his path for sport.

At sea, he was even more brutal. Roche reserved a special hatred for Spaniards, whom he tortured mercilessly – accounts claim he once roasted two Spanish prisoners alive over a fire, an atrocity that spread his infamy across the Caribbean. Despite (or because of) his cruelty, Roche’s daring brought him wealth. He liked to prowl the sea lanes off Campeche and Havana, pouncing on Spanish treasure ships bound for Europe. His successes in turn fueled wild sprees back in Port Royal’s taverns.

One episode illustrates Roche’s cunning: he was captured by Spanish authorities in Campeche and sentenced to hang, but he orchestrated a clever escape. While languishing in the dungeons, Roche managed to smuggle out a forged letter threatening the Spanish governor with vengeful buccaneer retaliation if Roche were harmed. Believing the threat (and recalling how close buccaneers had come to overrunning Campeche before), the governor relented. He offered Roche a deal: exile to Spain rather than execution, on the condition he swear off piracy forever. Roche readily swore a false oath, was put on a ship to Europe, and as soon as he arrived in Spain promptly found passage back to Jamaica to resume his piratical career. Such audacity only burnished his legend among the Port Royal brethren.

Roche Braziliano’s eventual fate is uncertain – a testament to the shadowy lives of these rogues. Some say his ship disappeared at sea around 1675, perhaps sunk in a storm with all hands lost. Others speculate that Roche retired quietly, having sated his lust for Spanish blood, and vanished into obscurity under an assumed name. In either case, by the time Port Royal’s golden age waned, Roche Braziliano’s reign of terror had become folklore. To this day he personifies the wild cruelty of the Port Royal buccaneers – those men who lived by the sword (and often died by it), reveling in a port that catered to their darkest appetites.

Blackbeard: The Fearsome Devil of the Caribbean

No roster of famous pirates would be complete without Blackbeard, the most infamous pirate of the early 18th century—and indeed Blackbeard had ties to Port Royal as well. Born Edward Teach (or Thatch) around 1680, his exact origins remain debated. Most historians believe he was born in Bristol, England, though some legends—particularly in Jamaican folklore—suggest a Jamaican origin. What is more certain is that young Teach spent time in the Royal Navy or as a privateer during the War of Spanish Succession (1701–1713), likely sailing out of Jamaica on English ships.

One genealogical record even lists an Edward Thatch Jr. serving on HMS Windsor in Jamaican waters in 1706. In those years he learned the sailor’s trade and perhaps the art of naval combat. When peace in 1713 left many privateers unemployed, Teach – like many hardened seamen in Port Royal and beyond – turned to outright piracy.

By 1716, Edward Teach had reinvented himself as “Blackbeard”, operating from the pirate haven of New Providence in the Bahamas. Towering and fearsome in appearance, Blackbeard cultivated a terrifying image: he famously tied smoldering slow-match fuses into his long black beard and hair during battle, wreathing his face in hellish smoke. In 1717, he captured a large French slave ship, armed it with 40 guns, and renamed it Queen Anne’s Revenge, making it his flagship. Blackbeard then terrorized the West Indies and the North American coast, becoming the scourge of merchants and colonists. One of his most brazen exploits was the blockade of Charleston, South Carolina in May 1718. Blackbeard’s fleet seized incoming ships and hostages, and he issued an audacious demand: the city deliver a chest of medical supplies as ransom. He even threatened to execute all his prisoners and send their heads to the Governor if his demands weren’t met. The city, fearing a massacre, complied, and Blackbeard slipped away after days of holding Charleston hostage – an act that spread his monstrous reputation far and wide.

Despite the lurid legends, Blackbeard was shrewd and calculating. After running Queen Anne’s Revenge aground (possibly intentionally) to downsize his crew, he accepted a royal pardon in mid-1718, hoping to settle down. But the temptation of piracy drew him back. He established a new base in a hidden inlet off North Carolina, operating with seeming impunity. His continued plundering so alarmed officials that the Governor of Virginia, Alexander Spotswood, took the extraordinary step of arranging an expedition across colonial lines to eliminate Blackbeard. On 22 November 1718, Lieutenant Robert Maynard of the Royal Navy caught Blackbeard’s ship off Ocracoke Island. In the bloody battle that ensued, Blackbeard fought ferociously. It reportedly took five gunshots and twenty sword wounds to finally bring the great pirate down. Maynard’s men chopped off Blackbeard’s head and hung it from the sloop’s bowsprit as proof of his death (and to claim the reward). The grisly trophy was later displayed on a pike at the entrance to the Chesapeake Bay, a stark warning to other pirates.

Blackbeard’s connection to Port Royal, while not as prolonged as some others, bookends his life. He likely knew the town as a young sailor, and after his death, some of his former crew were captured and brought to Jamaica for trial. His legend also lived on in Port Royal’s lore—a colorful tale even emerged of Blackbeard carousing in a Port Royal tavern with a pet monkey named “Jefferson” at his side. While almost certainly apocryphal, the story speaks to how deeply Blackbeard’s larger-than-life persona had impressed itself upon every pirate port’s imagination. To this day, Edward “Blackbeard” Teach is remembered as the archetypal pirate – fierce, cunning, and ultimately hunted down – and Port Royal counts him among the notorious figures who walked its streets.

---

Charles Vane: Defiant to the End

In the tumultuous years after Blackbeard’s demise, Captain Charles Vane rose to infamy as one of the last great pirates to menace Jamaica and the Caribbean. Vane was an Englishman, likely born around 1680, who found his calling in piracy after the War of Spanish Succession. By 1715–1716 he was among the many privateers-turned-pirates haunting the West Indies. Vane became known for his boldness and brutality, but also for a stubborn streak that would be his undoing. Operating from the Bahamas’ pirate haven at Nassau, he refused to surrender when Woodes Rogers arrived as Royal Governor in 1718. In fact, Vane staged a daring escape right under the nose of Rogers’ forces. Cornered in Nassau’s harbor by Royal Navy ships, Vane sent a captured vessel set ablaze straight toward the blockade – a fire-ship that created chaos and forced the navy ships to evade. In the confusion, Vane slipped his sloop out of Nassau under cover of night, defiantly rejecting the King’s pardon. This audacious act cemented Vane’s image as a pirate unbowed by authority.

After fleeing Nassau, Charles Vane prowled the seas with a small fleet, often in company with younger pirates like Jack Rackham. He scored a few minor prizes, but his leadership was soon challenged. In late 1718, off the coast of Hispaniola, Vane attacked what he thought was a feeble merchant ship, only to discover it was a powerful French warship. Outgunned, Vane chose to flee rather than fight, ordering a retreat after a few broadsides. This decision outraged his crew, who deemed it cowardice. The next day, Vane’s quartermaster, Jack Rackham, led a mutiny: the crew voted Vane out and elected Rackham captain in his place. Vane and a handful of loyalists were cast off in a small sloop, thus ending his command in humiliation.

Vane, ever resilient, continued pirating with his little sloop. He managed to seize a couple of small vessels and rebuild a ragtag crew. But fate caught up with him in 1719 in the Bay of Honduras. A sudden hurricane roared through, wrecking Vane’s ships and drowning most of his men. Vane himself washed up alive on a deserted island with just one other survivor. Stranded and starving, the two men waited for rescue. When a ship finally did stop at the tiny island, salvation turned to doom for Charles Vane. The ship’s captain, a former buccaneer named Holford, recognized Vane at once – and had no intention of rescuing a notorious pirate. Instead, Captain Holford seized Vane and delivered him in chains to the authorities in Jamaica.

In Port Royal, Charles Vane met the fate he had long dodged. He was tried for piracy, found guilty, and hanged in November 1720 at Gallows Point. The once-proud pirate who had sent fire-ships at navy vessels now dangled from the gallows before a crowd. Thus ended the life of a man who, in many ways, embodied the final chapter of the Golden Age of Piracy – fiercely independent, daring to the last, yet ultimately unable to escape the noose. Even in death, however, Charles Vane’s defiance is remembered. His escapades at Nassau and his refusal to ever surrender made him a folk hero of sorts among later pirates, and his execution at Port Royal marked the closing of an era when pirates could call that port home.