We take a look at the real life inspiration for Black Sails' Charles Vane.
We know very little about the early life of Charles Vane.
Notes from the time indicate he had recently moved there, but from where, we just dont know.
Some people believe that Charles wasnt even English, he was French (Vane).
If this were the case, the historical Charles Vane may actually have been a slave at some time.
But these kinds of bond servants were often under bond to work many years past their actual life expectancy.
Plus, they could be bought or sold, with no say in the matter.
This isnt a very pleasant word, either.
A still smaller group look at the facts of servitude and just call them slaves.
Whatever, if Vane was part of this bunch, he would have been transported from France to Martinique.
There he would have encountered an unusual situation.
In 1715 or 1716, Vane signed on to the privateering crew of Henry Jennings.
Jennings was one of the founders of the pirate colony of Nassau.
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Jennings, Vane and crew returned to Nassau with 87,000 in gold.
Jennings then set out to illegally sack Havana.
Bellamy then joined forces with Hornigold.
The incident caused an international shitstorm, and to appease the French, the English declared Jennings a pirate.
But he always called whatever ship he was usingRanger.
Vane seems to have scraped up Calico Jack Rackham as quartermaster at about this time.
On July 6, 1718, Vane came into Nassau port in an attempt to burn Woods Rogers fleet.
Apparently he planned to raise his own navy and re-take Nassau by force.
The two crews partied together for several days, then parted ways.
Blackbeard was killed on November 22 of the same year.
Vane had been very successful financially, but he was not popular with his crew.
Their opportunity came when Vane refused to attack a heavily armed French merchant.
Vane, in the meantime, immediately started to re-build his pirate fleet.
He was doing pretty well, with a growing collection of boats, when a hurricane took him out.
He washed ashore on a small island, alive but with only one crew member.
The two lived on the island for months, eating fruit and turtles.
Eventually a ship captained by an old friend of Vanes found them.
But times had changed.
Holford, Vanes old friend, had gone straight.
Vane was left on the island alone.
His luck, however had deserted him.
There was a reward on Vanes head, and he was carried into Jamaica and tried as a pirate.
He was hanged on March 29th, 1720.
TS Rhodes is the author ofThe Pirate Empireseries.
She blogs about pirates atthepirateempire.blogspot.com
