John Rivers (pirate)

John Rivers (died 1719) was a pirate best known for leading a settlement and trading post on Madagascar.

The English Courteen Association attempted to sponsor a colony at St. Augustine on the south-western Madagascar coast.

[4] Castaway sailor Robert Drury survived the loss of the Degrave in 1703 and spent many years in service to various native Kings, as well as visiting John Pro and other ex-pirate traders.

Drury often searched for a way to escape the island, looking for a place where American or European ships might stop so he could beg for passage.

He was not enthusiastic about his chances of finding passage off Madagascar from St. Augustine: “And when I came to consider that ships come to this country, and the poor condition of St. Augustine Bay rendered it very unlikely they should come to trade there, I did not find; but I was by this providence likely to get sooner to England than any other place where I had yet been.”[5] Rivers died in 1719, the same year as fellow pirate traders Pro and Thomas Collins.