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Black Jack Anderson - Australia’s most notorious pirate

AUSTRALIA’S only real pirate was a physically imposing African-American from Massachusetts who terrorised shipping off the West Australian coast for a decade before he met a grisly end.

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JOHN William Anderson - a towering, powerfully-built African-American man who came to Australia as crew on a whaling ship - would seem an unlikely candidate to be this country’s only true pirate, but there you go.

Equally unusual, given our island nation status, is the dearth of pirates in our history, but that’s another story.

Anderson was, if anything, an accidental pirate.

Born in Massachusetts in the early 1800s and raised by a single father, Anderson was a crew member on the whaling vessel the Vigilant which limped into King George Sound (modern day Albany) in WA in 1826 after suffering damage in a storm.

The Vigilant’s battered crew found themselves drinking at the store that night with another ship’s crew. A fight between the seamen broke out, one man was killed and the volatile Black Jack - as he was known - was blamed, though there is no concrete proof it was him.

Perhaps his next actions were more of an indictment – he fled the scene, stole a small chaser vessel with several other crewmen and took off for the dangerous Recherche Archipelago off Esperance.

The Recherche Archipelago off the southern WA coast is where Black Jack Anderson made his hideout
The Recherche Archipelago off the southern WA coast is where Black Jack Anderson made his hideout

The archipelago is made up of 105 small islands, which were uncharted at the time.

The group drifted through the islands for a while, living off seals, before making their base at Middle Island – the biggest island in the archipelago – where there was soil, vegetation and, most importantly, fresh water.

They lived there for 10 years, sealing and raiding passing supply ships heading either to Hobart or Sydney off the Roaring Forties. Black Jack ruled the roost from a cave on the island.

The gang did very well for themselves. Seal skins were sold for six shillings a skin - and the booty from passing vessels was a bonus.

But Black Jack and his henchmen also murdered local Aboriginal men and enslaved their women. The Perth Gazette of October 1835 reported that Anderson and others shot and clubbed Aboriginal men to death and took the women in their boats.

One local woman, named as Dorothy Newell, became Black Jack’s spouse and bore him children.

Statements made in Albany courthouse say that Middle Island was “in the possession of John Anderson, a master of a sealing boat”.

The court was also told that Anderson forced seamen to give him their money or they were killed. Like the English Highway man said, while pointing his pistol: “Stand & deliver, Your money or your liver!”

Another article described him: “Black Jack Anderson was no kind-hearted pirate of the type often portrayed in popular fiction. He was a cruel, ruthless murderer who, himself, came to a violent end.”

Anderson finally met his end about a decade after he first fled Albany. Sick of his bullying, it is said some of his underlings plotted to do away with him.

And did. Black Jack was murdered and buried somewhere on Middle Island, though his resting place is yet to be found.

His old cohorts gradually gave up pirating and returned to the mainland and into obscurity.

Originally published as Black Jack Anderson - Australia’s most notorious pirate

Original URL: https://www.dailytelegraph.com.au/truecrimeaustralia/ourcriminalhistory/black-jack-anderson-australias-most-notorious-pirate/news-story/9a30fb16d7c587c5ea089cebf2d884b2