When a hurricane destroyed his camp, Dampier joined a band of buccaneers. The pirate’s life provided Dampier with a source of income. So he went to Mexico, where he took up logging and began describing wildlife. He moved from England to Jamaica to help manage a sugar plantation, but that didn’t work out. Orphaned at an early age, William Dampier whetted his appetite for the sea with several long voyages. This was the life that William Dampier embraced in 1674. Members of the crew shared in the booty and received compensation for the loss of body parts in action- an early form of worker's compensation. But a the same time, most pirates abided by their own codes of conduct, and life aboard pirate ships was more democratic than that on naval ships at the time.Ĭaptains were elected by popular vote and could be removed if their performances fell short. There's no doubt about it: pirates were cruel and greedy. And out there on the high seas were ships headed to Europe from the New World and Orient, loaded with gold, jewels, silks, and other treasures. Lured by these rewards, many able seamen ventured into the free-spirited life of piracy-including some of the most famous pirates of all time. Skilled seamen in England and other countries were fed up with harsh naval life. But the heyday of pirates was the late 1600s and early 1700s.

Pirates have been a scourge on the seas for thousands of years. And he left his own unique mark on the Golden Age of Piracy.

He published his observations in his best-selling books. He journeyed around the world three times, visited places few people had ever been, and kept a detailed journal of what he saw. But Dampier also had an insatiable hunger to see and describe what was then a little-known world. Like most pirates, he was motivated partly by the desire for material gain. But he definitely wasn't your typical pirate. But William Dampier was famous in his own time and influenced some of the world's greatest scientists, explorers, and writers.ĭampier was a pirate. William who? Like most people, you may never have heard of this restless, curious Englishman. Meet William Dampier: A Most Unusual Pirate

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