So you may probably know him better from Persona 5, as the Persona of Ryuji Sakomoto, but today we are talking about the real Captain Kidd, from the Daily Life Section in Story of America Cards.

(Who is Captain Kidd?)

William Kidd, also known as Captain William Kidd or simply just Captain Kidd, was a Scottish sea captain who was commissioned as a privateer and had experience as a pirate. He was tried and executed in London in 1701 for murder and piracy.

Kidd had captured a French ship, commanded by an English captain, as a prize. He had been commissioned by the Crown as a privateer for this expedition, but the political climate of England turned against him in this case. Some modern historians, for example Sir Cornelius Neale Dalton, deemed his piratical reputation unjust and said that he was acting as a privateer. Documents found in the early 20th century in London court papers supported Kidd's account of his actions.

(The Most Famous Pirate of All)

Considered in legend among the greatest pirates of them all, Captain William Kidd has touched the imagination of Americans (and also around the world) for about seven centuries now, he is believed to have been born in Greenock, Scotland, about 1645, but little of his early life is known---expect that he went to sea as a young man and eventually became a ship's captain.

About 1690 he married a widow of a sea captain and acquired considerable property including a house on what is now the corner of Pearl and Hanover streets in New York City.

During the next few years, Kidd traded and privateered aboard his own ship the Antigua, and during King William's War (1689-1697) he distinguished himself in action against French privateers.

In June 1695, Kidd sailed to England and there he met the unscrupulous Richard Coote, recently appointed governor of New York and Massachusetts.

Coote was impressed by Kidd's reception as a seaman, and so he placed him in command of an expedition to stop pirate attacks on British ships, all the while scheming to line his own pockets with Kidd's captured booty.

Kidd left England in 1696 aboard the 34-gun ship Adventure Galley and proceeded to various pirate haunts in the Indian Ocean.

Whether or not Kidd resorted to piracy during the next three years is still argued by historians, but it is probably true that he plundered friendly ships instead of destroying pirates, At any rate, in 1698 he put into Madagascar with his biggest prize to date: the Armenian vessel, Quedagh Merchant, with a cargo estimated at $50,000.

His Crew, unhappy with their small share of the booty, mutinied and scuttled the Adventure Gallery.

Kidd managed to defend the Quedagh Merchant, but in this (or a later) fight he killed one of the mutinous crewmen.

When Kidd arrived in the West Indies the following year, he discovered he had been charged with piracy by the East India Company.

While his lawyer negotiated with Coote over the matter, Kidd buried all or some of his accumulated treasure on Gardiner's Island in New York's Long Island Sound.

Some of it was later recovered and sent to England, but many authorities believe that portions of his treasure still lie somewhere waiting to be unearthed.

Kidd was subsequently arrested and to England to stand trial for piracy and the murder of his crewman in Madagascar.

His trial began in May 1701, and despite a spirited defense Kidd was found guilty on both charges, He was hanged in London on May 23rd 1701, still protesting his innocence.

(The Mythology and Legend of Captain Kidd)

The belief that Kidd had left buried treasure contributed greatly to the growth of his legend. The 1701 broadside song "Captain Kidd's Farewell to the Seas, or, the Famous Pirate's Lament" lists "Two hundred bars of gold, and rix dollars manifold, we seized uncontrolled".

It also inspired numerous treasure hunts conducted on Oak Island in Nova Scotia; in Suffolk County, Long Island in New York where Gardiner's Island is located; Charles Island in Milford, Connecticut; the Thimble Islands and Cockenoe Island in Westport, and on the island of Grand Manan in the Bay of Fundy.

Some time in the 1690s, Kidd visited Block Island where he was supplied with provisions by Mrs. Mercy (Sands) Raymond, daughter of the mariner James Sands. It was said that before he departed, Kidd asked Mrs. Raymond to hold out her apron, which he then filled with gold and jewels as payment for her hospitality. After her husband Joshua Raymond died, Mercy moved with her family to northern New London, Connecticut (later Montville), where she purchased much land. The Raymond family was said by family acquaintances to have been "enriched by the apron".

In 1983, Cork Graham and Richard Knight searched for Captain Kidd's buried treasure off the Vietnamese island of Phú Quốc. Knight and Graham were caught, convicted of illegally landing on Vietnamese territory, and each assessed a $10,000 fine. They were imprisoned for 11 months until they paid the fine.

(Ending)

And that was Captain Kidd, did you know any of this about him before going into this instead of what is told about in Persona 5?, well if not then I hope you liked this, and I'll see you in the next history card, Bye.