001Welcome everybody. My name is Mina Jane. I'm the director of the Ashlin Public Library in Massachusetts. And I'm super excited to be here with Sam Marquee who's going to be talking about his book, Captain Kid, a true story of treasury of treasure and betrayal. And I am a history like total nerd. So I cannot wait to hear what what we have to hear what um Sam has to say, including the fact that he is the ninth generation. No, what is it? ninth greatgrandson, which is he had his nine generations basically. Yeah. >> Yes. Ninth great grandson of Captain Kid. So, he might know of what he speaks. Who knows? Maybe he had letters in his attic or something. So, we'll find all that stuff out in a second. I just want to say thanks to
002the friends of the Ashlin Public Library for supporting all of our programs. We couldn't do this fun stuff without them. I'd like to thank Sam for letting us share this program with other libraries because of course, you know me, when libraries work together, we make magic. And um you can buy signed books by Sam from Esop's Fable, our very favorite indie indie bookstore. Um he does have slides as you can see. So we're going to um turn the chat off during his slides and then I'll open it again when his slides are done so that you're not distracted by them. Um like I said, Sam is the ninth great grandson of Captain Kid. He is by day and what is it like a an something geologist? I was like, "What is that?" >> It's a
003hydrogeeologist, which means I'm a groundwater I'm a groundwater expert for groundwater cleanup and groundwater modeling and expert witness work for contamination in groundwater, basically. >> Oh, well, that seems very different from being, as your bio says, like the best historian out there. >> Well, I don't know who said that, but you know, maybe some, you know, there's hyperbole is everywhere these. So, >> I enjoyed reading that. I was like, "Hey, you know what? You got it. Flaunt it." So, um, Sam, welcome to our virtual stage. Thank you so much for doing this. >> Thanks for having Mina. So, I appreciate being here. Um, so you want me to just take it from here? >> Yeah, I was going to say like tell us about yourself and then we're going to start the slides and I
004I will be offscreen and I'll come back when you're done. >> Sounds good. So, I'm gonna give a talk today about my new book, Captain Kid, a true story of treasure and betrayal that came out uh kind of came out in miday and um and kind of tell a little bit about my background and you know about Captain Kid because that's what we're going to be interested. I've given this talk at a number of bookstores and book events and book signings and things. So, it's a little bit tailored for people who haven't read the book and and and I don't want to spoil things. So, I don't So, there are sort of So, I try to have kind of not spoiler alerts, but try and get the general picture of Captain Kid without getting in
005too much detail on all the on the factual items. This group's probably going to be a mix of people. So I'm going to kind of go through it and then obviously your questions will will probably for those who were kind of captain kid afficionados you know they'll they'll they'll already know the story. So we will be giving away some things for those who want a spoiler alert up front. So the question is um you know my presentation has kind of a general format here. Um I'm going to talk about you know why I chose to write a book about Captain Kid. Uh it was my 12th book. So, why did I wait so long to do that? People seem to be kind of interested in that. Some other things that are kind of writer related
006things. Um, I'm going to talk a little bit about, you know, Cappy Kid, who he was and where he's from without kind of getting in too much detail because of course I want you to buy the book and read it. So, but I am going to touch on that a little bit. Um maybe to touch a little bit on his, you know, he he was a New Yorker, uh, you know, who was born in born in England, but but really became a colonial American, uh, living in the Caribbean and then, you know, later New York. So, he was a pretty prominent New York citizen. So, I want to get into that a little bit because that's interesting to a lot of people. And he knew Boston well. CP clearly has a New England connection uh
007that we want to talk about a little bit too to tie it into, you know, new since this is a New England event, we want to tie it into that too. Um I'm going to talk a little bit about Sarah Kid, the woman behind the man, uh and Captain Kid's life. Um and then I'm going to talk about the Red Sea. So that's going to be kind of an interesting part of the Captain Kid story. in in the 1690s. The first gold rush in American history occurred in the 1690s of Captain William Kidd and and other people who lived during those times in the early age of enlightenment. And um what this involved, I'm going to get into detail. It's basically plundering the ships in the Red Sea that were worth generally between 20 and
008$200 million in today's dollars. So this was a major gold rush in American history, the first major gold rush in American history. And it was a huge event that pretty much took over the whole Atlantic seabboard all you know all the way from New Hampshire down to you know the Carolas. Um so it's a big deal and I'm going to talk about it in this presentation. I'm going to talk about the faithful voyage of Captain Kit. So you can cue the soundtrack. I can talk about it, but I'm again I'm going to try and not talk about it too much for the people uh because we we know we're going to probably at least have half or more who probably are, you know, haven't read the book or bought just bought the book or maybe
009are thinking about buying the book and I don't want to spoil it for those people. So, we're going to tiptoe around the mega details a little bit. Again, there's Captain Kid. if you don't know already, he basically has single-handedly inspired virtually every treasure myth in in world global history. People are still fanatically looking for his treasure today. So, we're going to talk about that stuff. And of course, I grew up with those kind of stories, which some are wildly, you know, inaccurate, uh, and some are sort of, you know, have some a little bit of gr grain of truth to them. And then I I'm not actually going to do a book reading. That's kind of from my other presentations that I give at bookstores. So, I'm not going to do that. Um, so why
010did I write a book about the notorious arch pirate Captain Kit? Well, you know, cuz he's my ninth greatgrandfather on my father's side, the Marquis side of Austin Marquis. I grew up with these stories and that, you know, started in the late60s because we had some family genealogologist that kind of that I had these stories, but they were all just he was somewhere between an Aerrol Flynn type swashbuckler and sort of a rogue, but remember because it was our family history, we always sort of softened him a little bit. you know, he was, you know, he was a handsome rogue and a vivaceious spirited, you know, spirited guy and kind of an aerrolint type swashbuckler. So, it's like, well, that's I didn't really, you know, when you're a kid, you're just dress up like a
011pirate and you don't think that much of it. But apparently, here's a picture of me in college. Apparently, I was dressing like a pirate, you know, at an earlier age, uh, at least somewhat. Um, so it was always in, you know, these family stories that I grew up with and then, you know, later later was sort of cemented by Dr. David Boils and his research. Um, so I grew up with these stories, but they weren't accurate. They were kind of a joke. So when I set off on this mission, uh, to write this book, I I I kind of went in not knowing what to expect. Um, I just in terms of pe people like the the the author angle stuff. So, I get into that a little bit in these in these, you know,
012book presentations that I do at bookstores and stuff. So, part of the thing that had an influence on me, besides the fact that I grew up with these little stories that were pretty much not really that accurate was the fact my my grandfather had a place on St. Croy in the Virgin Islands. Uh, he was Elmer Pearson from Kansas City. He was a Swedish guy, fought in World War I. He has a picture with J, you know, Jodper trousers that Patton wore in World War I. So, he was this kind of cool, interesting guy. But we used to go like every third year our family uh at Christmas to St. Croy in the Virgin Islands. So, here's a picture of me when I was 5 years old. Um I guess I don't know. Mina, can
013can they see my arrow? They're seeing that, right? >> Yes, I can see it. >> Okay, good. I'm going to use the arrow then. That I just had to make sure. I wasn't sure because I'm controlling the thing. Good. Okay, so here's a picture of me in Christianstead, uh, Virgin, St. Croy, Virgin Islands, the town of Christianstead. Well, which is has an incredible history for piracy and privateeering and a lot of interesting colonial Americans, too. So, here's probably it did. This had an influence on me. I didn't really realize it till I wrote I wrote a book on Blackbeard which I'm going to talk about a little bit and this book on Captain Kid now but I grew up you know in Christianstead has a flavor has a piratey flavor and I loved going there
014when I was a kid I'd go there from Colorado and for me a Colorado you know cowboy kid who grew up in a dusty old cow town Bronco fan this was a big deal to go to St. Croy like every we went like every third year. Um and so we'd I I'd be around this architecture. There's a lot of piratey stuff there. There's B the hotel's the Buccaneer. You walk down the streets here, you know, you can see this ar kind of piratey architecture, the big swinging doors, big ceiling fans that, you know, obviously back in the pirate era, they they didn't have those. But here's the fort. This is Fort Christianstead that was there built early. It was there in the 1600s. um and and definitely by the early 1700s. So um the town
015of Christianstead was you know played a role in me. Here's me with my sons uh like 30 years later in the same place. You can see this part of Buck or this island. This isn't Buck Island, but the this is the island right off uh right off Christianstead is right here. And then here's me and my sons there. I took them back there and kind of took them through all this stuff. So, it's sort of I just wanted to let you know this is what really kind of helped my little piratey stuff when I was a kid and and because we I we you know I just loved going to St. Croy. So, that's really the gist of it. So, that played a role in it. Here I have my little pirate maps and I
016used to get little soul le soldiers there, pirates and kind of colonial American soldiers because I was kind of like little history buff. So all of this played a big role in this kind of piratey stuff that that I only only am kind of now realizing. So who was Captain Kid and what you know I'm going to do the quicky notes version. Um but basically he was born in 1654 in Sohham England to a Protestant Christian family. Uh but he went in at an early age. He had he has a very strong Scottish connection. Um and he went in at an early age to the poor town of Dundee. So he might you know and exactly what age we don't know exactly but he was there at an early age and at some point he
017became we you know the the there there's not a lot known about his early years but basically at some point he became a cabin boy or an apprentice uh in the you know the poor town of Dundee and sailed to the Caribbean. Now, he was literate. He if you look at Cappy Kid's letters, he was a pretty literate guy, very had a succinct writing style. He was he he he he wrote concisely and he was a pretty smart guy. He he knew his language, so he could read and write. He was trained in mathematics and navigation. He went to the Caribbean at an early age. We don't know exactly when, but by by his early teens, he was probably definitely in the Caribbean. And he served it probably as a merchant seaman, you know, apprentice
018originally. And at some point he became a Caribbean Buccaneer. So the Caribbean Buccaneers um were not pirates. Um a lot of you know we always try and make them out to be pirates and Henry Morgan and those but were they piratey? Yes, they were absolutely piratey. But the difference back then in the golden age of piracy which went from 1650 to 1730 a lot of scholars can't really agree on that exact date but you know David Cordingley and uh Marcus Ratiker and a few other people kind of come up with this 1650 to 1730 which is kind of what I'm sticking with but there's three subdivisions within that golden age of piracy. The first were the Caribbean Buccaneers and yes were they pirates? No, they weren't pirates. They were licensed privateeers who stuck it to
019Imperial Spain and to a lesser extent the Portuguese. Were they rum swilling drunks and wild rebellious guys who fought and chased women? Yeah, absolutely. Just like every seaman on the face of the planet for the last, you know, 3,000 years. So they technically, you know, were very pirate-like in the, you know, they lived inhabited that, you know, first started off as the as the Boues uh on the French island of Hispaniola and and Tortuga and those islands there. And they started out as just hide hunters. So they were they're hunting wild boores and wild cattle and wild animals, taking the hides and making money just as hide hunters in an allmale environment that was wild. They, you know, they would drink too much and they would do all the things that that that men do
020when they get with other men and kind of do bad things. But they were and those guys were originally just hide hunters. So they lived on the the islands. At some point though they got a more English and Dutch contingent joining these French bouanes. And so they at some point kind of on once Jamaica was taken over by the British from the Spanish in 1655, they got a large number of of Dutch and and uh you know and English volunteers that were joining these bouet these French boues and evolving into the pirates in the wickedest city of on earth, Port Royal Jamaica. Uh you know which started in 1655. So that got taken over in the in the later 1650s, 1660s, 1670s, 1680s when Captain Kid was there. That was the the time of the
021Buccaneers, the Caribbean Buccaneers. So they did not they were not the villains of all nations because they were selectively sticking it to Imperial Spain and to a lesser extent the Portuguese. Some of them violated their commissions clearly. Some of the commissions were not fully valid but most of them in general were privateeers who were licensed and fighting for imperial you know in you know different countries under the colonial governors of Jamaica and and also Hispanola you know French Hispanola. So that's the first era of the golden age of piracies the Caribbean buccaneers from around 1650 to 1689. During the latter part of that is when Captain Kid went to the Caribbean. So he was a buccaneer, Caribbean buccaneer, captain kid in the 1690s. The second era of the golden age of piracy is the Red
022Sea Men era. Now I'm going to get into that and show some maps. It's going to help see it a little better. But in general they were basically colonial Americans for the most part and some British and some other countries to a much lesser extent European countries who would go sail to the Indian Ocean and attack in the the shipping of the Red Sea and along the Malibar coast of India and they would take ships worth you know sometimes some of them were cheap ships but most of the big ships that belonged to the great Mugal of India King Arzeb I were worth between 20 and200 $100 million in today's dollars. These were astronomical. So people were going all over colon America, Newport, Rhode Island, Boston, uh the Carolas, Philadelphia, but primarily New York and
023Newport were the two places where they were sailing out and attacking the ships of the Great McGall of India from American ports with licenses to fight the French up in Newfoundland and off the Canadian coast. But they would take they would violate those licenses and go to the Indian Ocean. So we're going to talk about that because that was really Captain Kid's era. The villains of all nations that we're most familiar with is the last third group of pirates of the golden age of piracy. They came way late. So every most of our images of pirates come from Blackbeard Anne Bonnie Mary Reed uh Steve Bonnet Black Sam Bellamy who's famous in New England you know who crashed his ship off the off the co off the uh you know Cape Cod. So those um
024we got who else do we got? We got Calico Jack Rackom. Everyone in Black Sals that Black Sals is is really the the be most accurate pirate show and movie ever made. So if you want to see what pirates were really like for the most part, not completely, Black Sals is the best show to watch. It's really good. And so that covers all of those guys. Blackbeard's in it. Calico Jack Rackom's in it. Mary and Bonnie's in it. All those people. Um, and that's the villains of all nations era from from really I'm calling it 1706 to 1730 just because the the Red Sea Men era was over by then, but it really was mostly from about 715 to 1725. And that was the that that's when the villains of all nations, the pirates were
025taking every kind of ship and colonial Americans were now by this point attacking them. the the the aristocracy was not going to take having their ships taken uh during the last stage of golden age of piracy. So my first book that I wrote about pirates was a book on Blackbeard. Now, I went to the Outer Banks in around 2010 for a family vacation and it was raining one day and we were up by the Wright blood Wright brothers uh up in the northern part of of the Outer Banks and I needed a book and I was like, so it was a rainy day with the Wright brothers thing. So, I went and I grabbed this book on Blackbeard by this guy Kevin Duffus and I couldn't put it down. It was like, oh my god,
026this is really interesting. So even though I grew up with all these pirate stories and things as a kid, I really that kind of, you know, disappeared for a long time until I came back and saw this book by Kevin Duffus on Blackbeard. It's kind of a picture book. So it has a lot of, you know, cool images in it and and a detailed story. Um, and it's a little different interpretation of really where Blackbeard came from that that I don't necessarily agree with that, but it's an incredible book and a beautiful well-written book. So I read this book and I couldn't put it down. Then we we we kind of like the Outer Banks or me, my wife and family. So we would go back there for these family vacations kind of from 2010
027till maybe 2017. Well, when we went back like I think our third visit, I was I went to the where Blackbeard fought his last battle. It's off if you ever go it's it's looks like it did exactly back in the day. So if you go uh on Ochre Coke Island, you can see look offshore about 100 yards, 150 yards, you can see where Blackbeard fought his last battle. So I would go out there kind of I did a couple little pilgrimages out to Blackbeard. But then the last time I was there with my wife on this trip here that you can see us together in 2017, in August of 2017, I was like, you know what? It's the 300th anniversary of Blackbeard's death. do you think I should write a book on Blackbeard? And up
028to that point, I've been writing kind of environmental thrillers and history books on World War II was kind of my focus. And she's like, "You got to write the book. It's coming out. Get busy. What are you going to do?" So on this trip, I decided to write this book on Blackird. And it ended up being a Kirkus reviews best book for for August of 2018. So that's kind of gives a little sort of a little bit of background on the golden age of piracy and you know kind of my interest in pirates and little family kind of connection. But really Captain Kid in the we're going to get back to Captain Kid now in the Caribbean. Captain Kid here's Port Royal Jamaica here. So that's where he would have been his base when he
029went to the Caribbean probably, you know, in the in the late 1660s or early 1670s. when he was kind of a young captain boy. So he would have been fighting against you know taking been involved into the taking his Spanish ships would have probably been doing some merchant runs too cuz you know he later in his life became a merchant sea captain. So all of these things Captain Kid um you know grew up with in the Caribbean. So he sailed the Caribbean islands that he sailed in. He knew Antigua he spent time in he had been to St. Croy, which is showing here, he had been over in Jamaica. So, he would been he would have been attack involved in attacking ships um in in this entire area of the you know the Caribbean Sea
030area. So, Captain Kid knew this area and later when he it was a pri you know he was a privateeer at some point beyond you know beyond being an apprentice and he's taking Spanish ships and maybe some Portuguese and so this was his at this time love you know Florida was controlled by the Spanish St. Augustine was a Spanish stronghold. Cuba was controlled obviously by the Spanish. Hispanola was kind of divided up into, you know, a Spanish side on the eastern side and on the on the, you know, French side. Um, you know, had was kind of where the Buccaneers evolved started over here. Um, you know, that that was the French side of Hispanola, which is modernday Haiti, you know, to the west and Dominican Republic to the east. So, Captain Kid knew all
031this area of the Caribbean uh by the 1670s and 1680s. Captain Kid bought property in New York in 1688. He unlike a lot of his peers uh fellow seaman of his age, he actually invested in real estate, you know, by 1688, 1689, 1690, 1691, he had real estate in New York. So this is one of the famous paintings showing Capikit. Gapikit never dressed like this. Okay. He did not look like kind of this makes him look sort of like a almost like a little a Spanish courtier. Captain Kid usually, you know, had a blue jacket is what he wore. Yes, he carried a sword regularly, so that's accurate, but he probably normally would have had white stockings and a blue breach breaches and jacket. you know, he would have had a velvet jacket and, you
032know, a linen jacket like this. He wore a tricorn hat. So, all this is reasonably accurate. Sarah probably this is not too far from what she looked like. So, this is an image showing the, you know, what was was Fort James and later Fort William here where Battery Park is today. There was a Dutch windmill on the island of New York in the 1680s and 1690s. So, this isn't that far off of Captain Kid entertaining uh in New York Harbor during the 1690s where he lived. He had real estate. He owned several real estate properties in New York. Uh where I'm going to show the Lower East Side. Uh and he, you know, he was a man of sort of, you know, he had saved his money from his privateeer earnings uh and and bought
033real estate instead of pissing it away on on liquor and women, which was unusual for the time period because most privateeers and pirates and seaman were just spending their money, you know, virtually as soon as they came back into port. So, Captain Kid's house that he lived in when he was married to Sarah, uh he married Sarah Bradley, who uh when she was about 20 and he was like, uh in his mid30s. Uh but they lived in Pearl Street by 1691. Uh by May of 1691, they were married and lived in this house here, a three-story mansion. This is shown the East River here. So he had prime real estate and he owned five other properties too in New York. All in this area here within about five blocks of this of his primary residence.
034So this is at 119 121 Pearl Street uh which also turns into Dock Street as you go further north up here. Uh but this is showing the wall here. This would be Wall Street. So modern day Wall Street would run right along here up to Broadway which would be up here. So it back then it was called Broadway, not Broadway. Uh and the Wall Street, there was a wall, there was a footpath that became Wall Street on the other side of this wall here. So this wall was built to keep out the Puritans, New England Puritans and Native American along uh tribes tribes and and and those tribes they were trying to keep out of, you know, because New Amsterdam was Dutch then. So starting in 1625, New York was controlled by the Dutch through
035the Dutch East West India Company and and uh basically up until 1664, the Dutch controlled new the colony of New Netherland, which would have been New York colony and the town of New York, which was New Amsterdam then. So this by this time when Captain Kid was there, it was New York cuz it was change over. The changeover occurred in 1664. But he had prime real estate. He had a crane to bring up on the third floor so he could haul goods up. I don't know what you know, they're not showing the crane here, but this was his house. This is reasonable faximile of his house then where he lived with Sarah. So he was right on the East River. Since this time, this Pearl Street is now three blocks in. So, because of landfilling
036all around Manhattan on the east on the East River and the Hudson and on the south side, you know, they're now you they built out three blocks. So, his prime real estate on the East River overlooking the East River is no longer there uh today. It's three blocks inland. So, his location, Captain Kid's home and some of his other properties would be all in this area in here, south of Wall Street right here. But his house was right along in here. Cappy Kids House is right along here. They're calling it Doc Street, but it was still called, it was still called Pearl Street back then. Um, and this is really became Doc Street further up here. Um, you know, north of Captain Kid. So in any case, back then in Captier in the 1690s, there
037were only 5,000 people lived in New York. So there were, you know, largely mostly Dutch or at least half Dutch, but a lot of English, French, uh there were walloons who were kind of Belgians and, uh, you know, there were 700 Africans, some free and most of them were enslaved, though. So it was a very multithnic environment that Captain Kid and Sarah Kid lived in in their house here on Pearl Street. And so this is showing around 1700. This is probably a little bit later than really Captain Kids era. It's probably a little, you know, it's going circus 1700, but this is generally what it looked like. So the fort would have been down here. The Great Dock would have been here. This would have been the, you know, New York Harbors out here. Captain
038Kid House is right here. Wall Street right here. Here's Broadway. Trinity Church is built right in here. So, Trinity Church, the church, I think the the graveyard for Trinity Church is right over here. So, all of that Trinity Church was built in 1696 through 1698. Um, and Captain Kid did help build Trinity Church, too. So, he was a community leader. Wasn't a pirate. So, Captain Kid moves back, you know, New York. He was there by 1688, but he was at sea fighting against the French in King Williams war, which began from 1689 to 1697. Uh was, you know, English and the Dutch Republic fought against France. Um, and Imperial France. And so, Captain Kid was a privateeer, licensed privateeer with a commission from the crown to fight against the French from 1689 through uh, you
039know, through 1691. In 1691 he became a merchant senior. So from 1691 to 1695 he and Sarah are living in New York having a and he's a merchant captain sailing to and from the Caribbean and making you know good money as a as a as a commercial uh uh sea captain in the merchant trade. So, but he was privateeering fighting against the French on behalf of the English from 1689 to 1691 uh for those that three-year period in there. In 1691, he returned to New York and married Sarah whom he knew he had a previous romantic relationship with and they kind of reconnected um after her her first husband William Cox died. He was a rich it was a for or forced marriage by her father. Um and she married him but he ended up
040in a drowning incident in 16 uh 1689. So he was she was no longer married to him and she was also married to a guy named John or who was a Dutchman uh before Captain Kit. So Captain Kit was actually her third husband but they had a they knew each other from before. So the Red Sea Men era began in the 16 kind of the early 1690s and involved sailing from ports that I said before Boston. I mean primarily New York and Newport, but also a little bit from Boston and a little bit maybe from Philadelphia and Charleston, but mostly New York and Newport. They would sail across the Atlantic from these North American ports. Sometimes they would sail out of England, too. other others and they would go and seize the ships sailing south
041here along this path from MadiRaa Islands, Cape Verde Islands and then head towards the Brazilian coast before swinging over and they would go to Madagascar here. This is the big island of Madagascar and would be kind of the base of these pirates. And then they would attack the ships off the Red Sea at the Bab Elm Mandab, which is a choke point uh for shipping for these ships, these East Indian ships that belong to the Great Mughal of India and and other you know wealthy merchants uh of India. So these ships like I said before would be worth 20 to200 million dollars. A lot of them were part of the Haj which were basically they would sell East Indian products, silks and all the things of the east and all the fabrics of the east,
042salt peter and a lot of other things that they would get from India. They would sail to the Red Sea. These were Muslims. So the great mug of India was a Muslim leader and they would sail for the for the annual gathering in usually July and August or even you know June through August called the Haj where they would go to Mecca to pray which they still do today. Obviously Muslims throughout the world go to this. It's a huge event. So the great mug of India would finance these incredible ships. merchants would go aboard and pilgrims to go to pray and they would go, you know, from these ports here in India to Jedha and then they'd go walk, you know, to Mecca at that point by camel or whatever by by by horse or
043camel or other means. They would go pray and trade and they would come back with gold, silver, and all kinds of other things from Turkish merchants and Arabian merchants and and other merchants too. maybe African merchants too who would gather in these places and they would bring treasure ships that were worth like I said 20 to $200 million back to Indian ports. Well, that's when the pirates would wait right here in the Babsel, you know, at the Babel Mandem and they would attack these ships. So, the people that would attack these ships right here, this is showing enlargement of this. So you can see they would sail to Jedha here and then they come back through the Gulf of Aiden and the Arabian Sea to these ports here in in the Indian coast. Well, they
044would be attacked by the pirates. The most famous of which, well, this is showing some images of these pirates. They were multithnic. There were some, you know, the um kid, Captain Kid, for instance, had African-American seaman. He had um he had Native American seaman. So he had a multi-thnic group of seaman. Captain Kid. Now, Captain Kid was sent to the Indian Ocean to hunt pirates. He wasn't a pirate himself. So, but this is showing kind of what they look and obviously these are kind of romanticized images of pirates. But the first of these pirates was a guy named Thomas Chu. He was a Rhode Island gentleman who in got a commission from the governor of Bermuda, Governor Rish. And he came back and and and got a crew uh you know from from Bermuda and
045Rhode Island and colonial Americans. He sailed to the Indian Ocean with a privateeer license to go hunt p to hunt French in up in Canada because remember this was King Williams war. you know, English America is fighting the French. So, they would in the 1690s, guys like Thomas Chu, who's shown here with with uh Governor Fletcher of New York, who's the governor of New York, who's giving commissions to privateeers, um is, you know, commissioned, Thomas Chu is commissioned to go hunt French shipping up off the coast of Newfoundland and in the St. Lawrence River, uh and and that area. Well, what does he do? He goes straight to the Indian Ocean. Actually, I'm getting ahead of myself here. Goes straight to the Indian Ocean to hunt down shipping here. Well, in 1693, he takes a
046ship that's worth like, you know, I think over over a hundred million dollars, I think, in today's dollars. Actually, over $120 million. So Thomas 2 with only 60 seaman sails to the Indian Ocean hits a gold mine by taking a great ship along with the great Mugal of India and he sails you know takes that ship sails back to Madagascar here at St. Mary's Island off the north, you know, the north uh east coast of Madagascar. And then he sails back to Newport, Rhode Island, and he brings $120 million in. He's hailed as a hero. Thomas Chu, he's a Rhode Island gentleman. He has a wife and daughters. They meet him at the docks and he sell, you know, he's made 120 million. All of his guy, his individual seaman are all getting over a
047million dollars each. So, this is the first gold rush in American history. individual seaman and we're talking about poor seammen tradesmen farmers you know not all of them have seafaring experience are going to the Indian Ocean and taking these treasure ships from the great mil of India that are worth you know tens to hundreds of millions of dollars it's crazy so he comes back and there's crews look somewhat like this little bit romanticized but kind of gives you sort of the action-packed flavor of what these guys are coin and then Thomas J sails back. Well, it create, like I said, it creates a gold rush. By 1694, colonial America from all the way from Charleston up to New Hampshire, people are just going into Newport and New York in droves to get on these ships
048that are sailing to the Indian Ocean because overnight you can go from being a poor out of work guy to being a millionaire by hundreds of them. We're talking about even thousands of these guys by the end of the by the end of the decade. So this is a gold rush. It's unregulated because no one is controlling it yet at this point. Well, in 1695, Captain Kid, who's been a merchant seaman for the last four years, an occasional privateeer, taking friendships because he's still once in a while, he's taking friendships, but he's making he's getting rich as a merchant seaman living in New York. Has the most beautiful English woman, Sarah Bradley kid, who's his wife. He has two beautiful daughters that he loves that are like young young girls born in 1692 1694 and
049he's wealthy. He's wellliked. He's a jury foreman. Everything's going right for Captain Kid. He decides to go to London because he wants to be kind of wants to get t have a taste of what it was like to be a a commission privateeer again. But he wants to get a crown commission as a royal privateeer. um because he he probably wants another t a last taste of glory. Uh he's getting a little older now. He's approaching or he is 40. He's over 40 now, which you know is old back then or older at least. Um so Captain Kid decides to go in June of 1695 to London to get a crown commission to fight the French. He has no he doesn't want to fight pirates. He doesn't want to hunt pirates, but he's a licensed
050crown privateeer. He's never been a pirate in his life to this point at all. He's been a licensed privateeer. He's a war hero. He's a jury foreman. He's one of the richest guys in New York. He's married to one of the most important, beautiful socialites in all of New York. So, he sails there and who does he meet? He meets his friend Robert Livingston who's a New Yorker and he gets roped into this by Lord Belmont who has been earmarked to be the royal governor of New York, Massachusetts Bay Colony and New Hampshire which are at this point are going to be joined by under Lord Belmont. This guy right here, Captain Kid doesn't want to do it. He tries to back out of it. He wants a crown commission to fight the French only.
051He gets that commission, but Ro L Lord Belmont threatens to take his ship and threatens to impress him and his seaman if he doesn't agree to go to the Indian Ocean to hunt down pirates. King William III gets a 10% cut. He's involved in this thing. And four of the most important wig ministers, uh, the Duke of Shrewsbury, Admiral Russell, uh, the Duke of Romney, and Lord Summers, the top pro, you know, the top legal official in all of England are involved in this adventure for Captain Kid to go hunt pirates in the Indian Ocean and fight the French, which all Captain Kid wants to do is do that. But he's threatened by Lord Belmont, who's a partner. So all these wig lords and the king are basically Captain Kid's partner. Here's Kid uh in
052London at the time. And so he gets into the involved in this scheme that he really wasn't really want to be a part of through his friend Robert Livingston who's a Scot wealthy Scotsman who lives in New York uh at the time. So he's roped into this thing, goes back to New York. So oh well here's the commission that he has from the king of England. So you could it's William Third calls Captain Kid the trusty and well-beloved Captain Kid in this thing. So Captain Kid, the most famous pirate today along with Blackbeard, we'll we'll call it co-owners is under this with the four most important wig lords in England and the king, the trusty and well-beloved Captain Kid is sent off to on an impossible mission that he doesn't want to do to go
053hunt down pirates in the Indian Ocean. And here's, you know, the his license from the king of England himself. So they built him a ship in London in in 169 late 1695, early 1696. They built him the 34 gun adventure galley shown here. And it has 34 guns and it's also has 46 galleys, 23 on each side. So it's a powerful gunship. It's not, you know, it's probably like the equivalent of a English Royal Navy third rate. So, or or even fourth rate. So, it's a powerful ship though. It's not It's no slouch. And they give him they build this ship for him. It cost, you know, 6,000, kept the kids a partner. He gets a good cut, but he's roped into this. He didn't want to go. So, he goes back to New York
054and in in the summer of 1696 cuz he wants to see his wife and daughters and he still has to round out his semen. He doesn't have enough seammen. He only has he only has around 80 70 and he has to go get 80 more in New York. So he goes to recruit them to visit his wife and daughters. He's got this new big ship. So he's the talk of the town. He see he helps build Trinity Church right here that you can still see today. The first, you know, the first in it's burned down a couple times and been beveled. So it's on its like fourth incarnation. But the original Trinity Church, Captain Kid helped build by loaning his runner and tackle to build the beautiful church shown here. For that, he was rewarded
055by also by giving a subscription to the church which was being built from 1696 to 1698. He gets pew number four right up front. The most famous pirate of all time is right here up front with the recctor in pew number four. You can see it right here. Kid's name is right here. and his family. So, Kid and Sarah and their two daughters go to church at Trinity Church. Well, it was just being built that summer, though, so he's he's not going there yet. Um, okay. So, in any case, he returns to New York, and then he's got to go get all these sailors. So, he hires his sailors to go to the Indian Ocean to hunt down pirates. Not a pirate. So, where does he go? He follows the traditional route that all the
056pirates take, all the Red Sea men that he's out to hunt. So he's there to hunt. Thomas Chu is on written on his license. So his privateeering commission says, "Go get Thomas Chu. Go get Captain Wake. Go get these other captains and any other pirates." He also has a French commission to attack French ships. So he has two commissions. So he sails down to the Madiraa Islands. Of course, he's got to restock on Mader, find Madiraa wine. So he gets few a few hundred barrels of wine there. heads to the Cape Verde Islands and then all slingshots over the ca South American coast of Brazil and then he heads to Madagascar. There's a lot of things that happen on the way that I'm not going to get into because you hopefully I don't want to
057spoil it for those who are going to read the book. But the bottom line is he goes to Madagascar which is the same route that mar all the mariners take who go to the Indian Ocean. Sorry, my phone's ringing there and I don't think I can turn it off. Um, it's going to ring unfortunately. So hopefully that's not too loud for you. I'll try and talk loud over it. So in any case, um, he sails to he sails to Madagascar and then he goes and he hunts down he's basically hunting down pirate ships. So he ends up taking legally. This is showing the Indian Ocean again. So he's going he first sails from Tulier north to the islands here. He loses like 35 crewmen to tropical disease and then he heads here to hunt down
058pirates as they're taking uh the ships of the great Mughal and other Muslim shipping. So he's involved here. It takes him, you know, takes him basically a year to get to the Indian Ocean here. And he's looking for pirate ships and friendships. So he's hunting both because the French have a you know a big stake in India too that you know they're really between England, France and the Dutch are the three most prominent European in India at that time. Portuguese by that time are kind of a waning empire. Um so Captain Kid hunting ships here pirate trying to hunt pirate ships here or French vessels. So he ends up taking he ends up taking a number of ships but he lets them let them go except for two of them. So the two ships he
059takes are the Kada merchant which is worth between60 $70 million and hund00 million in today's dollars. So he ends up taking the ship but it presents French passes which makes it a 100% legal acquisition by Captain Kid because the the when you present papers that's what country the ship belongs to back in the in Captain Kid's day. So this ship here, the kid of merchant was uh worth a lot of money, but the captain presented French papers. Captain Cook took Captain Kid took it 100% legally by the legal standards of his era. He also took another ship called the Ruperel. During his voyage though, by this time he's got three ships under his command. And one of the other ships, the crew of the Ruperel, he puts he puts kind of his bad apples on
060that ship. Well, that ship may have taken or that ship did take another ship, a Spanish Gallot, without his approval. And Captain Kid by that point has a mutinous crew because it's a voyage from hell. He's had tropical disease. He's had all kinds of storms. He's been attacked by the Moors who are the, you know, Muslim East Indians. He's been attacked by even the East India Company. He's he's and the voyage is a disaster. They haven't made any money and they get, you know, they haven't earned any money hunting pirates or French. And so he has half or probably three/arters of the crew by this time is completely mutinous and there's no way he can really keep them under control. So he takes these ships legally, decides, well, we've we've made enough money. I can
061go back legally since I took these ships legally. But when he goes to when he goes to Madagascar here, St. Mary's Island 97 is of his crewman mutiny because they've been completely disgruntled and he ends up taking the Kadan merchant pretty late in after he's been in the Indian Ocean for 9 months and with nothing and they've been on half rations, no water, no money, they're beingounded. the crews getting, you know, has some kind of mutinous crewmen. So they fully mutiny on St. Mary's Island, 97 of them, and he's left with less than 20 loyalists who were kind of the non-pyratical faction who stayed with Captain Kid. Well, he sails back to colonial America and so I'm not going to give it away because I don't want to give away the book and becomes the
062most wanted man in the world and he gets involved in the trial of the century. So, this image here is showing Captain Kid going before the House of Commons in uh March of 1701. And here's all the This is a picture by Howard Pile, who's a very famous pirate artist, showing Captain Kid, of course, looking by like a Spanish swashbuckler here, be burying treasure on what looks like a deserted island. Now, Captain Kid did in fact bury some treasure and he gave a treasure to a number of people, but he did it purely because he didn't trust Lord Belmont, who was his sponsor in the Indian Ocean voyage, who is now the governor of New York, Massachusetts Bay Province, and New Hampshire. So, Captain Kid returns from his East Indian his voyage to the Indian
063Ocean that took place from September 1696 to uh July of 1699. So, two years and three two and three/4 years when he returns to America, he reunites with Sarah and his daughters and he goes to Boston and Lord Belmont's in Boston at that point. He's left New York. So, he's he's operating as the governor of Boston, I mean of New England, I mean of Massachusetts Bay at this point, but he's still overseeing New York and New Hampshire, too. So he lures kid into Boston under a by saying that he will give him a pardon and he lures him there. Captain Kid has the best two lawyers in colonial America. James Eont of New York and Thomas Newton in Boston who was a prosecutor in the Salem witch trials is Captain Kid's lawyer in Boston. So
064but Captain by then Captain Kid's a wanted man. He's wanted he he learns that when he came back uh to the Caribbean on his way back to America in 1699. So he tries to strike a deal with Belmont and say look I took these ships legally. They had French passes but it doesn't matter because the Indian Ocean piracy is too big a deal. The great Mughal of India is gone ballistic. The uh king of England's up in arms. The wig ministers who were involved in Captain Kid's deal and his supporters who said they had his back are just running for cover. No one wants to touch Captain Kit. He's persona nonrada in colonial America. So when he comes back to colonial America, he does bury some treasure or store some treasure on Gardener's Island, which
065is at the entrance of Long Island Sound. He does store some with Thomas Payne, Captain Thomas Payne in in nearance Bay uh in Rhode Island. And he also leaves it with Thomas Clark. Captain Thomas Clark, his friend in New York, who has a place in Stanford, Connecticut, where he keeps stuff. So, back in this era, uh, merchant seaman, privateeers who are licensed pirates in a way, Royal Navy officers, there's not much difference between them. Colonial Americans, they don't consider piracy a crime. Only the English crown does. Most colonial Americans are like, they're bringing money into colonial America. They're bringing gold and silver and goods. We don't care about piracy. So, Captain Kid, though, because he did put some bury some treasure on Gardner's Island has spawned every myth of pirates. Here's another image here uh
066by Howard Pile. You can see the initials here, who always makes him have a Spanish flavor. Captain Kid never wore anything remotely like this. So, all these myths of Look at here. He's a roguish Captain Kid. All of these are created from Captain Kid because he didn't trust Lord Belmont. He stashed his loot, legally gotten loot with a number of people in in, you know, in Long Island Sound, Connecticut, and Rhode Island. So today, I'm going to jump here because I'm not giving away too much of the book. Captain Kid of Popular Culture, he he would have been shocked. He's everywhere. Now I, as I say in the back of my book, I have about a 20 minute kind of summary of the legend of Captain Kid and all the stories he spawned from treasure
067hunting mythology to er, you know, all these other things um, in pop culture. But one of the things that always irritates me is of all the actors to play Captain Kid, Charles Lton was sort of a tubby guy in the 1950s and 1960s, we need someone better to play Captain Kid. Chris Hemsworth needs to be the Captain Kid kid for the the Captain Kid movie. This guy right here looks like Gene Wilder and Young Frankenstein. So, you know, we don't want him to be playing Captain Kid. But the point is that Captain Kid has been everywhere. He's There's taverns named after him in London. There's Captain Kids in Woods Hole, Massachusetts. There's a Captain Kids restaurant that I go to out in Hermosa Beach, California. That's one of my favorite places. There's there's roads named
068after him, hotels named after him. Um, you know, there's a rock and roll band. There's a Captain Kid rock and roll band. He's everywhere in pop culture today, which is, you know, one of his, which is the most ironic thing. He's known as the most famous pirate of all time, but he was never a pirate. So, here's the Captain Kid that I go to out in California. You know, it's like he never went to California. There's no Captain Kid. He never he might have made it to the Pacific or the South Sea it was called back then but it's doubtful but there's toy figure C kids everywhere there's probably you know he didn't scowl like this Captain Kid was a good guy lived in New York he was a jury for him and an eliting
069citizen here he is in the real history they always make him a kind of a pirate but this one they do make him a little more upstanding here so this is probably a little closer to what he actually looked like uh his wig I think though was chestnut brown though based on his one painting So, here's Captain Kids in Whopping uh which has important significance because that's where Captain Kid uh met his demise, which I think a lot of people probably know that so I'm not spoiling that. But in any case, he is everywhere in pop culture, which is kind of so as I say in my book, perhaps Captain Kid has had the last laugh on us all. So, that's the end. Uh it's probably not too much detail, but gives you kind of
070an overview. Uh, so now I think we can go to questions and talk about the real Captain Kid and mythology and whatever you want. >> Thanks Sam, that was really fascinating. Um, no idea about a lot of that. Um, so I do have a few questions here. Um, uh, somebody asked, "What did you think of the portrayal of Captain Kid in Plum Island by Nelson Deil if you read it?" I didn't read that, but I did know that Captain Kid is, you know, the the is in the book. I think it's pretty treasury. I think it's so I think it's probably a lot of the Captain Kid mythology, which is which I love. It's it's interesting. I just read a thing the other day where they said in Lake George, they're drudging up Captain Kid's
071treasure. Well, there's no connection to Lake George from the Hudson River. So, you know, these stories are are incredibly f amusing. So, but it's probably pretty good. I'm sure Nelson De gets a lot of things right, but I think a lot of Captain Kid stories are really the mythology, >> you know. >> So, I haven't read the book. I can't comment. >> Uh, I just want to remind everybody if you have questions to put them in the Q&A, which is a button at the bottom of your screen. Um, Sam, can you stay an extra few minutes if we have a few more questions? >> Oh, yeah. No, I I stay as long as you want. >> Okay. Thanks. Um, maybe 10:15. Um, Carl asked, "Is Captain Kid's house at 2021 Pearl Street still standing?" >>
072No, unfortunately, it's been long since gone. Um, it's uh I can't remember what it is, but it's a giant building and uh you know, it's it's long gone. >> Okay, that makes sense. I mean, it's what 400 years. >> But I will say one thing, and I I've said this in a lot of my talks. If I today had all of Cath Kathy Kid's properties were all tainted and stole taken from Sarah. So Sarah you get you get a lot of Sarah in my book because she's she's an amazing woman. My ninth great grandmother. So one of the things though is that if if Captain Kid's properties were around today, they'd be worth about $500 million. >> Oh wow. >> Seven of them because they're all on the Lower East Side. He had one that
073would be his farm that he, you know, he and Sarah co-owned, you know, together. Um, but under English law, remember Cap Kid owned everything, but she had, she brought something to the marriage, but he was already wealthy, but when they combined it, they were both very wealthy. Would be about a third of North Central Park. Captain Kid owned that. So, and he owned prime real estate in the lower lower east side, basically. >> Wow. Well, he That's amazing. Um, Karen asks, "Have you talked with LHN MJ Man Emanuel Miranda about making the We're Not Kidding music CD at all?" >> No, I haven't. But that sounds interesting. What was that again? >> Um, I'm not sure they spelled it right, but it says LN MJ Manuel Miranda. So, I'm thinking Lin Manuel Miranda about making
074the We're Not Kitting music CD. >> No, I don't have any plans to do that, but that sounds interesting. >> Um, Dennis wants to know, and I do too, if there's any buried treasure still out there. Okay, now this is the thing that this is the funny thing is um I get this question all the time and I don't it's it's one of those things that I hate to I hate to be Debbie Downer because people are so into it. So, you know, in some ways I want to finesse it a little bit, but I got to be honest, Captain Kid when he returned, the treasure that he buried was at Gardener's Hut. Okay. He did bury treasure there with John Gardner who fully approved. He he he hung out with John Gardner. They hit
075it off. Uh they sat on and had had hardsider aboard Captain Kid's ship and and and John Gardner agreed to hide some of kids. We're calling it treasure, but it was legally seized plunder from, you know, a a treasure ship, but it was legal what he took. Um he did bury some there. Unfortunately, Lord Belmont, who was a blood hound, who was the royal governor at that point, was in Boston, pretty much tracked down virtually all of the treasure. Captain Kid stored most of it in in like five different places. So, Gardener's Island, he had he left some with John Gardner, but he also buried some. He left it also with his friend, Captain Thomas Pay in Naraganset Bay. I don't know if I'm pronouncing that right, but Rhode Island. So, you know, not too
076far from Newport. He also left with to Captain Thomas Clark, who was his New York friend who picked up Sarah and their daughters and brought them to Captain Kid to outside to offtheshore Block Island. Um, and he also stored it with him who then stored it in Stanford, Connecticut. Lord Belmont pretty much tracked almost all of that down. Captain Kid had some with him, too. That was all seized because that was with Sarah. So, that was taken from Sarah. People today are still going all over the Indian Ocean, Madagascar, the, you know, the Caribbean. You know, there's been voyages. It's all in my book, too. The last 20 pages I get into all this the mythology because I I think it's really interesting. People have sailed to the uh to Thailand and off the in
077the Great China Sea to find his treasure. I mean, they're still look people are still doing this stuff. Is there any really? I I guess I can't say 100%. Most of it was taken. Is there more? Maybe. I don't know. Does that sound vague? Probably a >> It's a good opportunity to take our metal detector out of our library of things, though. Just saying. Um, so Brienne asks, um, and a couple other people have asked about descendants. So, you're the ninth great grandson. And I know that Sarah and um Captain Kid had two ch two daughters. Um are there many other descendants? >> Uh no. Well, they had they had two daughters and a son uh that they the they had a son that's it's in my book out of wedlock. So, they that was
078given up for adoption because Sarah was not married at that point um with Captain Kit. So, they had at least three. I don't know, they might add more. Uh but those are the three that we know about. Mhm. Um, and do we know anything about the sailor that Captain Kid killed? Age, background, anything like that? >> Yes, we do. We know a lot about him. And I didn't get into that, but we can talk about him. His his chief gunner was William Moore. So, Captain Kid hired him in 1696 in New York. So, William Moore had two prison sentences against his name. One for striking his captain before the voyage. and Kid, I don't think Kid knew because he he still hired him. Um or maybe Kid didn't knew and gave him a second chance.
079We don't know. We don't know exactly, but William Moore attacked his his captain in the Caribbean uh or in New York actually uh when he was a teenager. So, he was like 19 or 20, I think he attacked him. And then when he was in prison in he was in prison for like drunken, disorderly or something like that in the Caribbean. and he threatened he was overheard threatening to go to the French side during the war like he like so he would he would switch sides and be a traitor so he got imprisoned for that somehow for being like he he was kind of a loudmouth guy so he was kids gunner now he was the mutant leading the mutinies throughout kids voyage so from the very beginning before they even reached the madiraa islands
080William Moore was kind of the lead instructionist cuz he wanted to have a Red Sea voyage. A lot of the guys did. Remember these ships are worth a ton of money. Captain Kid's crew was going to get 60% by the by the end according to his commission. So they would get 60% not 100% like you know like a PI pirate ship would get. So pirate ship the captain would get three shares. the the the the chief mate and some of the key officers would get like one and a half to two shares and then the ordinary seaman would get one share or if they were like a cabin boy apprentice they might only get a half a share on this ship the crew and kid would got a nice cut 15% cut along with Robert
081Livingston but the crew would get you know they would all get one share they so if they go tech you know captain kid ship they all got a good share but but it was all in cloth. So, um, to answer the question, William Moore was his lead mutineer. Captain Kir Kid and him had been getting into it for months because, you know, William Moore is leading, you know, insurrection after insurrection. They finally got in a heated conversation and Captain Kid hit him with an empty wooden bucket and William Moore did die. So, Captain Kid was guilty of either nothing at all because Captain Cap, remember, he was he was he was combating a mutiny. So, Captain Kid, according to the legal cannons of his era, is guilty of at most nothing because he was fighting
082an insurrection or manslaughter. Worst case scenario, in reality, he was tried, hung, and or convicted and hung for firstdegree murder with a wooden bucket. >> Uh I don't think there's anybody in the history of the planet who has uh premeditated murder with a wooden bucket. That's pretty far-fetched. So, William Moore have a kid felt bad about it, but yes, he's guilty technically of either, you know, manslaughter at worst case. >> That's true. >> Um, so I have a couple comments and questions more about buried treasure. Paulie says, "There's a myth in my hometown of Milford, Connecticut, that he landed there one evening and boldly kissed a young girl. Supposedly, he buried treasure on an island on the coast there. Amazingly or not, no one has ever found any treasure, but it's a good excuse to
083have a pirates day celebration every year. And then >> most definitely >> any good reason for pirate day. >> Well, it's also Captain Kid was near there. So there's no question that so let's just place him so we get the history right. Stanford, you know, he gave a lot of he gave a lot, you know, millions of dollars of worth to Captain Thomas Clark, who did hide it in Stanford, Connecticut. >> He also went to, you know, like I said, nearance at Bay, uh, you know, is not too far from Connecticut, I believe, where she's talking about. He was there. Thomas Payne definitely stored it, but he stored the gold bars, which were later recovered by Sarah. Sarah sent someone to get it to because she's there to save her man, Captain Kid. Sarah plays
084a huge role in my book uh trying to save Captain Kid. It's her husband there. You know, they're madly in love. It's one of the greatest New York love stories of all time. Captain Kid and Sarah. So, there is a grain of truth to what she's saying. I don't know. I can't say if it was, but if if it's if it's having a party for Captain Kid, I'd love to be there. >> Like I said, I will go to any pirate day. Um, so on with the theme of buried treasure, John's asks, "The Captain Kid restaurant in Woods Hole was named for a local myth or legend that his treasure buried was buried nearby. Do you run into the story at all?" >> I don't, but I know that uh I know about Woods Hole
085restaurant. I know it's good. Everybody says how good it was, and I want to go there sometime. Um, I hope they, you know, show my book up by the front register, though. >> That would make sense, right? Um, Carol says, "Whenever I've taken the Thimble Islands tour on Long Island Sound in Connecticut, the guide always talks about buried treasure on one of the islands that was buried by Captain Kid. Is that a myth?" >> Well, no. That's probably Gardener's Island. He That's That's the one place that Captain Kid did bury treasure. >> Absolutely true. But it was all got it was all found by Lord Belmmont. >> We think we don't know that, you know. Is it possible? I don't know. Now, Gardner Island, just so you know, is privately owned. So they they've been
086there since literally the 1630s I think. >> Uh the Lord Gardner was a a Scottish engineer who built forts in the Connecticut coast. He was very prominent. So they're very you know old American family. You know that goes way back and that's their island. I I you know I I think you know you you can't really go there. You know you can't just say I'm going to Gardner's Island because they own it. >> Oh. Um, Ellen says, "The kid in wood holes is a lot of fun in the winter time, so you should make a trip out there." Um, and Karen says, uh, earlier she had said something about Lin Manuel men, uh, Miranda. She was saying, sort of maybe be facitiously, maybe you should reach out to him to see if he would do
087a musical about Captain Kid like Hamilton. >> That was that was that. >> It sounds interesting. I loved Hamilton. I saw it. >> Me too. Okay, last last question. Amanda says, "I don't completely understand why the various lords turned on Captain Kid. Can you give us a little bit of a better sense of what how that what happened there?" >> Yes, it's you know I the thing is my book gets into a lot of detail on all the backstabbing and treachery and and you know the treasure and you know what really happened and what we know with with what Captain Kid got and all and the reasoning behind it all. So it is the the good thing is the book is 384 pages long. So it's chunky but not too chunky. >> So you get
088a lot of this. You're going to get a lot of detail. And the you know obviously the endotes and bibliography have a lot of detail too because I had to put some of that stuff in there because the publisher wants it to be narrative non-fiction. Let's go fast. You know every you know. So um so you know to answer you know that question about why they did it. The bottom line is when Captain Kid left for the Indian Ocean the Red Sea pirates the Red Sea men were just getting started and you know starting to cause problems. By the time Captain Kid was hunting that was there, you know, basically the great Muall had reached his wit's end because the the crown is not doing anything. The East India Companyy's not hunting down pirates. The
089Ingis Crown is doing a lot of talk, but they're not really doing much yet. They didn't do a lot till they sent Lord Belmont. Lord Belmont's the big pirate anti-pirate crusader, and he doesn't go to America till April of 1698. So by the time Captain Kids in the Indian Ocean, he's just there at the wrong place at the wrong time because every Indian Ocean piracy by Thomas Chu by Henry Avery who's who's the grand pirate who got away with it all but was really kind of a dirty guy who was you know m they they attacked a lot of ships and you know raped the women and that was what Henry Avery did. Captain Kid was sent there to hunt down Henry Avery, Thomas Jew, and those guys. He was a law-abiding guy. So, these
090guys have just I mean, they have just raped and pillaged and taken these ships that are worth, you know, so much money. They're going back to colonial America. The colonial governors there, remember, they don't they're they're like, "Hey, you're bringing money into our ports." There's no banks in America then. So pirates and privateeers are bringing all of the money, the gold and silver specy into colonial Americas. This is a big deal. That's why colonial governors are all approving of piracy. They're they're not looking they're more, you know, people call it looking the other way. No, they just didn't see it as a crime. Most Americans didn't. They thought it was enriching the colony, taking it from Muslims from distant country who were, you know, they weren't they weren't Protestants, they weren't Christians. And the Muslims
091thought just as badly of Christians. They It's just the bigotry went both ways. So the bottom line is Captain Kid took these ships that were so much money and they didn't catch most of these other pirates. Henry Avery got away with it. That's the real problem. So, Captain Kid died for the sins of Henry Avery >> and the other pirates. That's the real story of Captain Kid. >> Wow. Oh my gosh. Well, you're going to have to read this book. And we do have it at the Ashlin Library. You can certainly get it from your local library if you don't live near Ashland or in Ashland. But, um, you can also buy signed books from Esop's Fable. Somebody just asked me, Sam, if you sell if you actually sell the directly signed books on your
092website. No, what we do is uh you can get it at any Barnes & Noble. You can get it at Hudson book sellers. It's everywhere. You know the books and you know not some are different than others. You can get it in every independent bookstore. It's in you know most libraries. But I will say libraries it's checked out. I' I've looked and it's not not people are not able to get it. So no, if you get the book all you have to do is email me at samuel marquisbooksgmail.com. It's on my website. send me an email and I'll send you a book plate. >> Those are what I said at ASOPs. So, I send people book plates is what I do >> because it's also nice because then you can put it on what page
093you want and it's got a cool little ship on it, a little logo. You just tell me what you want to write and I'll send them to you. I'll be happy to do it. >> Personalized books. Can't beat that. Okay, everyone. Oh, will it be available in audio? That's a good question. >> It is already available in audio. So if you go to, you know, whatever, you know, Amazon, Barnes & Noble, it's everywhere. It's it's out there. It's selling well, you know, doing well, cuz it's a good story. It's a real story. And, you know, I didn't Also, I want to say one more thing. I didn't go write this book to vindicate my ninth greatgrandfather. That's not what I just tried to be as sympathetic and write as good a book that's ever been
094written on Captain Kid. You know, to be honest with you, I you know, I still don't say he's he's innocent. You know, at the end of the day, I say he's guilty of piracy because he he at least looked the other way when one of his other ships, the November, which was the Ruperel that they changed the name. They took a Spanish Gallot and he was either so beat down by his crew, who was mutinous at that point, that he looked the other way. So I he's guilty technically of piracy because he was just beat down, gave up and he's guilty worst case scenario of manslaughter for the the death of William Moore. But no worse than that. And to be honest, in his time, most captains who actually killed a crewman that was mutiny,
095there would be no crime at all. So for him to even get manslaughter would be would be not right really because according to the legal tenants of the Dage which is what we have to look at Captain Kid was that would not be a crime >> right >> so but >> but I say still technically it is. So I don't dare to go be the homeboy for my ninth grade grandfather. I am sympathetic and I try and talk about all sides because I think he's gotten a I think he's got gotten the shaft. He's been a scapegoat of history and he need his real story needs to be out there. >> Well, we appreciate that sort of like almost the firsthand knowledge of it since you he was your ninth greatgrandfather. So, thank you so
096much for your time, Sam. I really appreciate it and I hope everybody gets to read this book because it's obviously fascinating and um you know, knowing that a descendant wrote it gives it that much more uh cache, I think. So, thank you again, Sam. I really appreciate your you being here and um for everybody who's been here, thank you and wonderful questions and I hope you have a wonderful night. I will send out the recording of this session in just a little bit. So, watch it again. >> Thank you, Mina. Thanks everybody for for listening to me tell about Captain Kid. I really appreciate it. >> Good night, Sam. >> Take care. Mistakes.