Christopher Condent

Condent (died 1734), born in Plymouth in Devon, was an English pirate who was best known for his piracies in the Indian Ocean.

His real name is uncertain; French sources from the time of his retirement refer to him as "Edward Congdon."^[1] He has been known under the surnames Condent, Congdon, Coudon, Comdon, Connor, Condell, or Gonwel; various given names also arise, including William, Christopher, Edmond, Edward, or John. His frequently-encountered nickname was "Billy One-Hand".^[2] He is most commonly known as Christopher Condent but "Christopher" as his given name was not seen in period sources and dates only to the 1950s.^[1]

History

Around 1718, when Woodes Rogers became governor of the Bahamas, and was tasked with ridding the Caribbean of pirates, Condent and his crew left New Providence. During a trip across the Atlantic Ocean, Condent killed an Indian crewmember, who threatened to ignite the ship's powder magazine. Shortly after, the ship captured a merchantman, the Duke of York. After a dispute, the crew split up between the two ships, with Condent elected captain of the sloop.^[3] At the Cape Verde Islands, Condent and his men captured a ship carrying Portuguese wine. Condent then sailed to Brazil, where he took more prizes, occasionally cutting off the ears and noses of Portuguese prisoners. He then returned to the area around Cape Verde, where he captured a flotilla of twenty small ships and a Dutch war sloop off Santiago. Condent kept the warship, and named it Dragon.^[3]^[a]

Condent seized the English galley, the Wright, a Portuguese ship, and a 26-gun Dutch vessel. Leaving the Wright behind, he led a fleet of three ships to the Gold Coast (Ghana) where they captured the Indian Queen, the Fame, and another Dutch ship.^[3]

Captain Condent, Shooting the Indian, from the Pirates of the Spanish Main series (N19) for Allen & Ginter Cigarettes MET DP835009

By April 1719, Condent had reached the island of Sainte-Marie, Madagascar. There he integrated some of John Halsey's old crew into his own. After a successful cruise to the East Indies they captured a rich Arab trading ship called Faza Ramance.^[4] Condent and his crew returned to the island of Sainte-Marie, dividing their haul into around £3,000 each.^[5] While there he traded with visiting British slavers and merchants, one of whom reported that Condent and his crew had so much treasure, they "need not go to sea again as long as they lived".^[4] In 1721 Condent and forty other members of his crew sailed to the island of Bourbon where they negotiated with the French governor for a pardon; twenty or more of the men settled on the island; Condent went on to marry the governor's sister-in-law.^[6] At Réunion he was visited by pirates Levasseur, Taylor, and Seagar who had captured the Portuguese Viceroy of Goa aboard the fantastically wealthy Nossa Senhora do Cabo. Condent negotiated between the pirates and the island's Governor for the Viceroy's release.^[7] In 1723 Condent travelled to France, where he settled down with his wife in Brittany and became a wealthy merchant in Saint-Malo.^[6] The last of his surviving crew died in the Mascarene Islands in 1770.^[8] One of his former crew who remained at Madagascar was James Plaintain, who established a trading post and set himself up as a local "King" with his share of treasure from the Faza Ramance.^[4]

His ship

At first thought to be William Kidd's Adventure Galley, the "Fiery Dragon" was claimed to have been found by Barry Clifford off the coast of Sainte-Marie, Madagascar, where it was purposely sunk in 1721.^[9] However, a UNESCO analysis of Clifford's discovery reported that Clifford had instead found an unrelated ship of Asian origin.^[10]

Flag

A more likely version of his flag as described by witnesses.

The Jolly Roger flag generally associated with Condent - three skulls-and-crossbones on a black flag or banner - first appeared in Mariner's Mirror in 1912, though it was not attributed to Condent and was dated to 1704.^[11] A similar design was printed in Basil Lubbock's “Blackwall Frigates” in 1922^[12] and F. Bradlee's "Piracy in the West Indies and its suppression” in 1923, again not attributed to Condent.^[13] Charles Grey attributed it to him in 1933 in “Pirates of the Eastern Seas” but without citing any evidence.^[8] The only period source describing his flag is an article in The St. James Post from June 1718 describing his ships "who appear'd with flags having a Deaths Head on them."^[14]

Notes

^ Modern writers (Clifford, et al.) generally refer to it as "The Fiery Dragon;" Johnson (1724) called it "Flying Dragon" but the majority of period sources, witness statements, newspaper reports, etc. only call it "Dragon."

References

^ ^a ^b Brooks, Baylus C. (16 May 2017). "B.C. Brooks: A Writer's Hiding Place: Edward Congdon, the Misunderstood Pirate!". B.C. Brooks. Retrieved 29 June 2023.
^ Clifford (2008), p. 1.
^ ^a ^b ^c Piat, Denis. Pirates & Privateers of Mauritius, Editions Didier Millet, 2014 ISBN 9789814385664
^ ^a ^b ^c Wilson, David (16 April 2021). Suppressing Piracy in the Early Eighteenth Century: Pirates, Merchants and British Imperial Authority in the Atlantic and Indian Oceans. Woodbridge, Suffolk: Boydell Press. ISBN 978-1-78327-595-3. Retrieved 29 June 2023.
^ Leeson, Peter T., Anarchy Unbound, Cambridge University Press, 2014 ISBN 9781139916264
^ ^a ^b Johnson, Charles (1724). The history of the pyrates: containing the lives of Captain Mission. Captain Bowen. Captain Kidd ... and their several crews. London: T. Woodward. Retrieved 26 July 2017.
^ Hostin, Geraldo (Fall 2021). "The Pirate of Cotinga Island (1718): The History and Archaeology of a Mysterious Shipwreck in the South of Brazil". MAHS News. 32 (2): 7–12. Retrieved 29 June 2023.
^ ^a ^b Grey, Charles (1933). Pirates of the eastern seas (1618-1723): a lurid page of history. London: S. Low, Marston & co., ltd. pp. 16–17. Retrieved 3 December 2018.
^ Ayoub, Nina. C., review of X Marks the Spot: The Archaeology of Piracy by Russell K. Skowronek and Charles R. Ewen, East Carolina University
^ Phillip, Abby (9 November 2017). "Inside the turbulent world of Barry Clifford, a pirate-ship hunter under attack - The Washington Post". The Washington Port. Archived from the original on 9 November 2017. Retrieved 13 January 2020.
^ Fox, E. T. (2015). Jolly Rogers, the True History of Pirate Flags. Raleigh NC: Lulu.com. pp. 13–19. ISBN 9781326448172. Retrieved 3 December 2018.
^ Lubbock, Basil (1922). The Blackwall frigates. Glasgow: J. Brown & son, ltd. p. 92. Retrieved 3 December 2018.
^ Bradlee, Francis Boardman Crowninshield (1923). Piracy in the West Indies and its suppression (Rio Grande Press 1990 reprint ed.). Salem MA: The Essex Institute. p. n5. ISBN 9780873801706. Retrieved 3 December 2018.
^ Fox, E. T. (12 July 2022). Pirates in Their Own Words Volume II: Contemporary Newspaper Accounts of the 'Golden Age' of Piracy, 1690-1727. Raleigh NC: Lulu.com. p. 83. ISBN 978-1-4716-3157-3. Retrieved 29 June 2023.