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William Kidd
Sign in to saveAlso known as Captain Kidd
Scottish sailor who was tried and executed for piracy after returning from a voyage to the Indian Ocean
Key facts
- Born
- c. 1645, Dundee , Angus , Kingdom of Scotland
- Died
- 23 May 1701 (1701-05-23) (aged 56), Wapping , Middlesex , Kingdom of England
- Cause of death
- Execution by hanging
- Type
- Privateer
- Allegiance
- Kingdom of England , Province of New York
- Commands
- Blessed William , Adventure Galley
via Wikipedia infobox
Wikidata facts
- Instance of
- human
- Given name
- William
- Gender
- male
- Citizenship
- United Kingdom of Great Britain and Ireland
- Place of birth
- Dundee
- Place of death
- Wapping
- Occupation
- pirate
- Languages spoken
- English language
- Conflict
- Nine Years' War
- Military rank
- captain
- Image
- William Kidd.jpg
- Work location
- New York City
- Convicted of
- murder
Show 7 more facts
- date of death
- 1701-05-23
- Commons category
- William Kidd
- date of birth
- 1645-01-01
- described by source
- Encyclopædia Britannica 11th edition
- manner of death
- capital punishment
- cause of death
- hanging to death
- P8168
- Warreella
Sources (2)
via Wikidata · CC0
~32 min read
Encyclopedic overview
William Kidd (c. 1645 – 23 May 1701), also known as Captain William Kidd or simply Captain Kidd, was a Scottish privateer. Conflicting accounts exist regarding his early life, but he was likely born in Dundee and later settled in New York City. By 1690, Kidd had become a highly successful privateer, commissioned to protect English interests in the Thirteen Colonies in North America and the West Indies.
In 1695, Kidd received a royal commission from the Earl of Bellomont, the governor of New York, Massachusetts Bay and New Hampshire, to hunt down pirates and enemy French ships in the Indian Ocean. He received a letter of marque and set sail on a new ship, Adventure Galley, the following year. On his voyage he failed to find many targets, lost much of his crew and faced threats of mutiny. In 1698, Kidd captured his greatest prize, the 400-ton Quedagh Merchant, a ship hired by Armenian merchants and captained by an Englishman. The political climate in England had turned against him, however, and he was denounced as a pirate. Bellomont engineered Kidd's arrest upon his return to Boston and sent him to stand trial in London. He was found guilty and hanged in 1701.
Excerpted from Wikipedia’s “William Kidd” article, available under the CC BY-SA 4.0 licence.