calico+jack

=Calico Jack=

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Jump to: [|navigation], [|search] The flag of Calico Jack || "Calico" Jack Rackham show] * [|1] [|Piracy] 
 * ~ John Rackham ||
 * = December 21, 1682 - November 18, 1720 ||
 * = [[image:http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/thumb/c/c0/Pirate_Flag_of_Rack_Rackham.svg/180px-Pirate_Flag_of_Rack_Rackham.svg.png width="180" height="120" link="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Pirate_Flag_of_Rack_Rackham.svg"]]
 * ~ Nickname: || Calico Jack ||
 * ~ Type: || Pirate ||
 * ~ Place of birth: || [|Bristol], [|England] ||
 * ~ Place of death: || [|Port Royal], [|Jamaica] ||
 * ~ Allegiance: || England ||
 * ~ Rank: || Captain ||
 * ~ Base of Operations: || West Indies ||
 * ~ Commands: || The Treasure ||
 * John Rackham** ([|December 21], [|1682] – [|November 18], [|1720] in [|Jamaica]), also known as **Calico Jack**, (often spelled Rackam or Rackum in contemporary documentation), was an [|English] [|pirate] [|captain] during the early 18th century. His nickname was derived from the [|calico] clothing he wore.[|[][|1][|]]
 * ==Contents==
 * [|2] [|Capture, Trial and Death]
 * [|3] [|Other Pirates]
 * [|4] [|References]
 * [|5] [|Further reading]
 * [|6] [|External links] ||

[[|edit]] Piracy
John Rackham is most remembered for two things: his [|Jolly Roger], featuring a skull and crossed [|cutlasses], which helped to popularize the design and associate it in [|popular culture] with piracy; and employing the two notorious female pirates of the [|Golden Age of Piracy] – [|Anne Bonny] and [|Mary Read] – in his crew. Rackham originally sailed under [|Charles Vane], an English pirate captain. In 1718, Vane engaged a vessel which turned out to be a French warship and was forced to retreat. Vane's crew, led by Rackham (who was the ship's quartermaster) voted to remove him as captain on the grounds of cowardice; Rackham was installed as captain in his place.[|[][|2][|]] He made a career of plundering small vessels close to shore, which proved his undoing as he cruised [|Jamaica] in the autumn of 1720. He captured numerous small fishing vessels, terrorizing fishermen and women along the northern coastline before coming across a small vessel filled with other [|English] pirates. The nine armed men were invited aboard, but were almost immediately under attack by an armed [|sloop] sent out by [|Governor Nicholas Lawes]. 

[[|edit]] Capture, Trial and Death
Rackham and his crew were captured October 1720 by Captain Jonathan Barnet. Rackham and the male members of the crew were tried and convicted in St. Jago de la Vega ([|Spanish Town]), [|Jamaica], November 16-17, 1720. Rackham was hanged at Gallows-Point in [|Port Royal] on November 18, 1720. Rackham's body was then tarred, [|hanged] in a cage, and [|gibbeted] on display on a very small islet (first known as Plumb-point) at a main entrance to [|Port Royal, Jamaica] as a warning to other pirates (now known as [|Rackham's Cay]).[|[][|3][|]] The gibbeting is referenced in the [|Disney] film //[|Pirates of the Caribbean: The Curse of the Black Pearl]//, in which several pirates are hung from an open caveface in the film rendition of Port Royal. Calico Jack's crossed cutlass [|Jolly Roger] was used in //[|Pirates of the Caribbean: At World's End]// as the Black Pearl's pirate flag. It was also used for [|Gena Davis]' flag in "[|Cutthroat Island]." 

[[|edit]] Other Pirates
Justice was not always so swift. When, in October 1720, Rackham and his captured crew were brought to the Port Royal jail, it was certain to have held Rackham's old captain, Charles Vane, rotting in a nearby cell. Vane was captured nearly two years prior, but was not tried & convicted until the March following Rackham's demise. [|[][|4][|]] Anne Bonny and Mary Read were not executed, because at their trial a week after Rackham's execution they both said they were [|pregnant]. They were given a temporary stay until the claim was proved, and the plan was to hang them after [|childbirth]. However, Read died in April 1721 of fever related to childbirth, while Bonny was spared execution and disappeared from all historical records, leaving much legend and speculation regarding her fate (and that of her child). The nine men captured with Rackham were tried and convicted in January 1721, and hanged February 1721. One of the men convicted with the crew, John "Old Dad the Cooper" Fenwick, was posthumously tried in January 1721 of other piracies committed the summer of 1720.