Thomas Collins (pirate)

Thomas Collins (died 1719) was a pirate active in the Indian Ocean. He is best known for leading a pirate settlement and trading post on Madagascar.

History

The privateering ship Charming Mary left New York in 1694, bound for Madagascar under captain Richard Glover. It was captured by pirates under John Ireland and Richard Bobbington and cruised against Moors in the Indian Ocean for several years. Collins had been aboard the Charming Mary, either as one of the original New York crew, or having joined when the ship put into Ile Ste Marie to trade and take on additional crew to continue its piracy.[1] Alternately, Collins may have come to the area with Henry Every before transferring to the Charming Mary. Every's ship Fancy left London in 1693 and was in the Indian Ocean when he captured the treasure ship Gunsway in 1695.[2] A Malagasy ruler named Ratsimilaho (purportedly born in 1694) was said to be the son of a native Queen and an English pirate named “Tom,” often cited as Thomas Tew;[lower-alpha 1] it's also possible Thomas Collins was the father.[3]

By 1699 Collins had joined Evan Jones aboard his ship Beckford Galley.[lower-alpha 2] Working with pirate trader Abraham Samuel at his Port Dauphin settlement, they captured the ship Prophet Daniel, among whose crew was future New York City alderman and mayor John Cruger.[4] Jones tried to recruit additional pirates but some declined so they could return to England or America and seek a pardon.[5]

Collins may have returned with them, as he was next listed as carpenter of the Degrave, a ship which left England in early 1701 but was lost off Madagascar that June. Most of the crew made their way among the Malagasy natives, leaving aboard other ships or settling with local tribes.[6] Collins joined the crew of pirate George Booth and helped him capture the Speaker late that year.[3] Later he sailed with Thomas Howard aboard the Prosperous but was wounded and left behind when Howard's sailors started a fight at the plantation of ex-pirate Aert Van Tuyl.[7]

Escaping from Van Tuyl, Collins had made his way back to Port Dauphin by 1707. Abraham Samuel had died the previous year and Collins took over his settlement and trading post, remaining there for over a decade. Historian Charles Grey writes, “The position was very valuable, for Collins, like Samuells, held the monopoly of the slave trade and, like Samuells, charged ~1oo to each ship that called in for that purpose, or to provision and shelter.”[6] Future Bahamas Governor Woodes Rogers visited Collins there in 1714.[2] Robert Drury, a fellow castaway from the Degrave,[lower-alpha 3] came to Port Dauphin in 1716 and found Collins there with fellow ex-pirate trader John Pro, noting that they “had lived without pirating for nine years.”[8] By 1718 there were only a few ex-pirates left at Port Dauphin so Collins and John Pro left for Ile Ste Marie, where they died in 1719.[lower-alpha 4][6] Royal Navy ships ousted the last of the Madagascar pirates in 1723.[8]

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See also
  • Adam Baldridge – ex-pirate who ran the trading settlement at Ile Ste Marie until 1697.
  • David Williams - another pirate who sailed with Howard and escaped Van Tuyl's plantation.

Notes
  1. Tew was the original captain of the pirate ship Amity. When Tew was killed fighting alongside Henry Every, his quartermaster John Ireland took over, and used the Amity to capture Glover's Charming Mary.
  2. The Charming Mary was a New York-based ship; one of the Charming Mary's owners was John Beckford, and some of Jones' crew on the Beckford Galley's were from New York, though they may be unrelated.
  3. Other Degrave survivors were picked up by pirate John Halsey's ship Charles. After Halsey died, pirate David Williams (who had served with Collins aboard Howard's Prosperous) briefly commanded one of Halsey's prize ships.
  4. Fellow ex-pirate John Rivers, who also ran a trading post settlement at Saint Augustin, Madagascar, died the same year.

References
  1. Ellms, Charles (1837). The Pirates Own Book. Portland: Sanborn and Carter. Retrieved 27 July 2017.
  2. Woodard, Colin (2008). The Republic of Pirates: Being the True and Surprising Story of the Caribbean Pirates and the Man Who Brought Them Down. Orlando FL: Houghton Mifflin Harcourt. ISBN 0547415753.
  3. Piat, Denis (2014). Pirates & Privateers in Mauritius. Paris, France: Editions Didier Millet. pp. 29–30, 64–65. ISBN 9782878681710. Retrieved 19 July 2018.
  4. Wilson, James Grant (1892). The memorial history of the city of New York, from its first settlement to the year 1892. New York: New York History Co. p. 286. Retrieved 19 July 2018.
  5. Fox, E. T. (2014). Pirates in Their Own Words. Raleigh NC: Lulu.com. ISBN 9781291943993. Retrieved 17 June 2017.
  6. Grey, Charles (1933). Pirates of the eastern seas (1618-1723): a lurid page of history. London: S. Low, Marston & co., ltd. Retrieved 26 June 2017.
  7. Johnson, Charles (1724). The history of the pyrates: containing the lives of Captain Mission. Captain Bowen. Captain Kidd ... and their several crews. London: T. Woodward. Retrieved 26 July 2017.
  8. Dow, George Francis; Edmonds, John Henry (1923). The Pirates of the New England Coast, 1630-1730 (1996 Dover ed.). New York: Courier Corporation. pp. 351–352. ISBN 9780486290645. Retrieved 19 July 2018.
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