03689cam a2200301 4500 560685492 TxAuBib 20220616120000.0 220121s2022||||||||||||||||||||||||eng|u bl2022014022 9780316703611 HRD 32.00 0316703613 HRD 32.00 TxAuBib Thomson, Keith, 1965- Born to be hanged : the epic story of the gentlemen pirates who raided the South seas, rescued a princess, and stole a fortune / Keith Thomson. First edition. New York : Little, Brown and Company, 2022. ix, 371 pages : illustrations (black and white) maps ; 24 cm. Includes bibliographical references and index. Part I: the sacred hunger of gold. The princess -- The golden swordsman -- The gap -- Golden-Cap -- The forlorn -- The second-largest city in the Western Hemisphere -- A natural pirate -- An easy canoe ride -- Castaways -- Surprizal -- The dragon -- The extreamest hazard of fire and sword -- Blood ran down the decks in whole streams -- Mutiny -- Part II: the South Seas -- The muzzles of our guns -- Swallowed by the sea -- As valiant and courageous as any could be -- Snake-haired sisters -- The merry blades -- Water, water -- Ransom -- Eighty-five stout fellows -- Robinson Crusoe -- The very illustrious and royal city of Saint Mark of Arica -- The itch -- Part III: straits. Expect ot be shot to death -- The pyre -- Bloddletting -- A warm deck -- The horn -- Landfall -- The silver oar -- The sequel. The year is 1680, in the heart of the Golden Age of Piracy, and more than three hundred daring, hardened pirates—a potent mix of low-life scallywags and a rare breed of gentlemen buccaneers—gather on a remote Caribbean island. The plan: to wreak havoc on the Pacific coastline, raiding cities, mines, and merchant ships. The booty: the bright gleam of Spanish gold and the chance to become legends. So begins one of the greatest piratical adventures of the era—a story not given its full due until now. Inspired by the intrepid forays of pirate turned Jamaican governor Captain Henry Morgan—yes, that Captain Morgan—the company crosses Panama on foot, slashing its way through the Darien Isthmus, one of the thickest jungles on the planet, and liberating a native princess along the way. After reaching the South Sea, the buccaneers, primarily Englishmen, plunder the Spanish Main in a series of historic assaults, often prevailing against staggering odds and superior firepower. A collective shudder racks the western coastline of South America as the English pirates, waging a kind of proxy war against the Spaniards, gleefully undertake a brief reign over Pacific waters, marauding up and down the continent. With novelistic prose and a rip-roaring sense of adventure, Keith Thomson guides us through the pirates’ legendary two-year odyssey. We witness the buccaneers evading Indigenous tribes, Spanish conquistadors, and sometimes even their own English countrymen, all with the ever-present threat of the gallows for anyone captured. By fusing contemporaneous accounts with intensive research and previously unknown primary sources, Born to Be Hanged offers a rollicking account of one of the most astonishing pirate expeditions of all time. 20220619. jz. Morgan, Henry, 1635?-1688. Piracy Panama History 17th century. Pirates Panama History 17th century. Panama History 17th century.