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Pirate

Howell Davis

Milford Haven, Pembrokeshire

A Welsh pirate who captured the man who became Black Bart.

Howell Davis was born in Milford Haven and became a famous pirate known for tricking his way onto ships and into forts. In 1719 he captured a ship off Africa whose crew included another Welshman, Bartholomew Roberts, who joined him.

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When
c.1690–1719
Where
51.7100, -5.0400
Group
Pirates

Visiting

Milford Haven has a museum on the waterfront.

Cover of Blood and Gold by Cale Mills
From the book

Blood and Gold

Howell Davis’s own career as a pirate captain lasted less than a year, yet his influence on the Golden Age of Piracy as a whole was disproportionately enormous, because it was Davis who discovered, trained and inspired the man who would go on to become its single most successful pirate: Bartholomew Roberts, Black Bart, whose story appears earlier in this book.

Sixteen true stories of mutiny, mercy, treasure and the gallows from the Golden Age of Piracy: Henry Every, Bartholomew “Black Bart” Roberts, Edward England, Howell Davis, Christopher Moody, Anne Bonny, Mary Read, Charles Vane, Benjamin Hornigold, Blackbeard, Stede Bonnet, Israel Hands, Calico Jack, Edward Low, Captain William Kidd and Samuel “Black Sam” Bellamy. Where the record is uncertain, the book says so.

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