The Pirate Raid That Stole Nothing but Hats

Maritime Stories and Their Hats

Illustration created using AI. The historical story below is documented and sourced.

Pirates took whatever they could use: silver, liquor, weapons, food, and sometimes the ship itself.

In 1717, however, the English pirate Benjamin Hornigold and his crew made off with something far less glamorous.

They stole a shipload of hats.

The encounter happened off the coast of Honduras, where Hornigold’s pirates stopped a passing sloop. The people aboard had good reason to be frightened. Hornigold commanded one of the most powerful pirate crews then operating in the Caribbean, and those unfortunate enough to cross his path could lose their cargo, their vessel, or far worse.

This time, the pirates were interested in only one thing.

A passenger later recorded that Hornigold’s crew did them “no further injury than the taking most of our hats.”

The pirates even explained why they needed them. They had become drunk the previous night and, for reasons that probably made more sense at the time, tossed their own hats overboard.

They took replacements from the people aboard and then allowed the sloop to continue on its way.

The surviving account doesn’t tell us that Hornigold woke that morning and deliberately went hunting for hats. Nor does it say that his men needed them specifically for protection from the Caribbean sun. That part appears in some modern retellings and certainly sounds reasonable, but it isn’t in the passenger’s account.

The truth is funny enough without adding anything to it. Hornigold’s pirates lost their hats during a drunken night, took most of the hats from another vessel, and apparently left everything else alone.

More Than Pirate Decoration

When we picture a pirate today, we tend to give him an enormous feathered or three-cornered hat. Real sailors of the early eighteenth century wore a much wider variety of headwear, and the passenger never described the hats Hornigold’s crew took. We cannot simply assume that everyone aboard was wearing what we now call a tricorne.

Whatever their styles, those hats were more than decoration. A sailor’s clothing had to last, and a good hat offered useful protection from sun, wind, and rain. Lose one in the middle of the Caribbean and there was no nearby shop where you could pick up another.

Unless, apparently, you were Benjamin Hornigold and happened to spot a passing vessel.

The incident also reminds us that pirates did not survive on treasure alone. They needed food, fresh water, medicine, tools, clothing, sailcloth, and all the ordinary supplies required to keep a wooden ship and its crew moving. A hat might not have held the excitement of Spanish silver, but to a bareheaded sailor beneath the Caribbean sun, it was immediately useful.

The Pirate Before Blackbeard

Benjamin Hornigold was not some minor pirate whose only claim to fame was stealing hats. He was one of the leading figures in the pirate community in Nassau, the Bahamas. Among the men who sailed with him was Edward Teach, who would become far better known as Blackbeard.

Hornigold attempted to maintain the questionable argument that he was still behaving like a privateer by avoiding British ships and attacking Britain’s enemies. His crew eventually tired of watching profitable targets sail past and removed him from command.

Then his life took an extraordinary turn.

Hornigold accepted the king’s pardon and went to work for Woodes Rogers, the governor of the Bahamas. One of the Caribbean’s most prominent pirates became a pirate hunter, chasing some of the same men with whom he had once lived and sailed.

Hornigold died in a shipwreck around 1719.

Of all the captures and reversals in his short career, however, the little encounter off Honduras may be the most memorable. No treasure chest was carried away. No valuable cargo was taken. The merchants kept their vessel and continued their voyage.

They simply continued it bareheaded.

Historical Note

The hat incident comes from a passenger’s journal quoted by historian Peter Earle in The Pirate Wars. It is also discussed by North Carolina’s official Queen Anne’s Revenge conservation project.

The historical evidence supports the theft of most of the hats and the pirates’ explanation that they had drunkenly thrown their own overboard. It does not identify the styles of hats taken or say that they were stolen specifically for protection from the sun.

Queen Anne’s Revenge Project: Did You Know Blackbeard’s Mentor Was a Pirate Hunter?