On the return leg of her maiden voyage of the triangle trade, Whydah Gally was captured by the pirate Captain Samuel "Black Sam" Bellamy, beginning a new role in the Golden Age of Piracy.

[3] A square-rigged three-masted galley ship, she measured 110 feet (34 m) in length, with a tonnage rating at 300 tuns burthen, and could travel at speeds up to 13 knots (24 km/h; 15 mph).

She set out for her maiden voyage in early 1716, carrying a variety of goods from different businesses to exchange for delivery, trade, and slaves in West Africa.

After traveling down the West African coast, through modern-day Gambia and Senegal to Nigeria and Benin, where its namesake port was located,[5] she left Africa with an estimated 500 slaves,[6] gold, including Akan jewelry, and ivory aboard.

She traveled to the Caribbean, where she traded and sold the cargo and slaves for precious metals, sugar, indigo, rum, logwood, pimento, ginger, and medicinal ingredients, which were to then be transported back to England.

[4] In late February 1717, Whydah Gally, under the command of Captain Lawrence Prince (not to be confused with the buccaneer who served under Sir Henry Morgan), was navigating the Windward Passage between Cuba and Hispaniola when she was attacked by pirates led by "Black Sam" Bellamy.

Pirate recruitment was most effective among the unemployed, escaped bondsmen, and transported criminals, as the high seas made for an instant leveling of class distinctions.

[12] Bellamy and his crew then sailed on to the Carolinas and headed north along the eastern coastline of the American colonies, aiming for the central coast of Maine, looting or capturing additional vessels on the way.

In any case, on 26 April 1717, near Chatham, Massachusetts, Whydah Gally approached a thick, gray fog bank rolling across the water—signaling inclement weather ahead.

South testified that it was his choice to accompany the 6 pirates going aboard Mary Anne in hopes of escaping, possibly by jumping overboard and swimming ashore as they drew near to the Cape.

Bellamy's ships Anne (captained by his quartermaster Richard Noland) and Fisher moved out to sea (eventually making it to Damariscove Island with heavy damage).

One of the two surviving members of Bellamy's crew, Thomas Davis, testified in his subsequent trial that "In a quarter of an hour after the ship struck, the Mainmast was carried by the board, and in the Morning she was beat to pieces."

Hearing of the shipwreck, governor Samuel Shute dispatched Captain Cyprian Southack, a local salvager and cartographer, to recover "Money, Bullion, Treasure, Goods and Merchandizes taken out of the said Ship."

Of the 146 souls aboard Whydah Gally, only two men—the ship's pilot, 16-year-old Miskito Indian John Julian,[21] and Welsh carpenter Thomas Davis—are known to have made it to the beach alive.

Young John actually chose to join the crew on his own initiative the previous November, when Bellamy captured the ship on which he and his mother were passengers.

[25] Among Whydah Gally's artifacts recovered by Clifford was a child-sized, black, leather shoe together with a silk stocking and fibula bone, later determined to be that of a child between 8 and 11 years old.

[26] His mother's account to local port authorities on what John's description was like, and especially of note, what he had been dressed in the day of his "kidnapping" by Bellamy's crew, included long silk stockings.

The Museum of Science and Industry in Tampa, Florida, announced the exhibit and linked it to the 2007 release of Pirates of the Caribbean: At World's End.