- Samuel Axe
Samuel Axe was an English
privateer in Dutch service during the early 17th century.Serving with English forces in the Netherlands during the
Dutch War of Independence , Axe traveled to the British colony ofProvidence Island , in the westernCaribbean Sea , where he assisted in the construction of its central fortress in 1629. However, after a disagreement withDaniel Elfrith (possibly over the capture of Spanish and Portuguese slavers during the early 1630s [http://bz.llano.net/gowen/melungia/article1.htm] ), he soon left the island withAbraham Blauvelt andSussex Camock and sailed forHonduras in 1633.In 1635, he accepted Dutch
letters of marque despite being in the employ of theProvidence Island Company and, from 1636 to 1641, acted as a privateer for the English trading company.Although briefly returning to Providence to assist the island's defense against Spanish attacks in 1636, Axe had a successful privateering career delivering a captured prize, with a cargo including gold, silver, jewels, indigo and cochineal, as he returned to England in May 1640.
Following the capture of Providence by Spain in 1641, the Providence Island Company was dissolved. Escaping to
St. Kitts , Axe would later take part in a privateering expedition under CaptainWilliam Jackson to theWest Indies from 1642 to 1645, in which the privateers managed to captureJamaica .Further reading
*Kupperman, Karen Ordahl. "Providence Island, 1630-1641: The Other Puritan Colony". Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1993. ISBN 978-0-521-55835-8
*Rogozinski, Jan "Pirates!: Brigands, Buccaneers, and Privateers in Fact, Fiction, and Legend". New York: Da Capo Press, 1996. ISBN 978-0-306-80722-0External links
* [http://www.geocities.com/Tokyo/Garden/5213/privata.htm Pirates and Privateers] by Rick Vermunt
* [http://www.kipar.org/piratical-resources/pirate-fame.html Famous Historical Pirates]
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