Jack Rackham

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"Aye. We'll use Rackham's ship. He ain't a capable captain."

―Charles Vane on Jack's captaincy skills, 1718.

Jack Rackham (1682 – 1720), more commonly known as Calico Jack, was a Jamaican-born British pirate who sailed West Indies from 1715 to 1720.

He was captain of the schooner, Royal Phoenix.

History

Early years

In 1682, Jack Rackham was born in Port Royal, Jamaica, at the height of the town's debauched history. As such, Jack aged into a frequent drunk who was rarely serious about anything. It was during these early years that he developed an affinity for Indian and Asian prints, earning him his nickname.

Eventually, the call of piracy proved too strong for Rackham to ignore and he became associated with Charles Vane, an English captain who had served as a privateer in the Royal Navy during the War of Spanish Succession.

Life as a pirate

In 1715 both Charles Vane and Jack Rackham travelled to Nassau – home of the burgeoning Pirate Republic – to make their living. There they met several other pirates, including some of Vane's former privateering associates; Edward Kenway, Edward Thatch, and Benjamin Hornigold.

A few years later, in 1718 – just after the passing of Edward Thatch – Jack became involved in a plot by Kenway and Vane to breach a British blockade of Nassau, set up after the Templar, Governor Woodes Rogers, had travelled to the city to reclaim it in the name of the Crown. Rogers had previously offered the pirate captains and their crews amnesty, if they would give up their pirating and return to Britain; an offer both Vane and Rackham refused.

Mutiny

Following their escape from Nassau, which came at the expense of Jack's ship, the Kingston, the three pirate captains agreed to pursue Kenway's fabled Observatory. They would start by locating a ship of the Royal African Company, which they hoped would lead them to the Princess, a slave ship carrying Bartholomew Roberts, the only man known able to locate the Observatory.

Eventually, they found and engaged the slave ship Royal African Pearl, but Vane's vessel was demasted in the battle and left adrift. Despite this, Kenway's Jackdaw was able to capture the warship, where they learned that the Princess sailed from Kingston every few months. At that moment, Rackham struck.

In alliance with the Ranger's crew, Jack mutinied against Vane, apprehending him alongside Kenway and the Jackdaw's Quartermaster, Adéwalé. Rackham remarked that he would sell Adéwalé in a local slave market, but that he could take no chances with Kenway or Vane, and so elected to strand them aboard the unseaworthy Ranger while he claimed the Jackdaw as his own.

Barely two months had passed before Rackham limped back to Nassau to accept the King's pardon. Upon his arrival he was detained by James Kidd and Adéwalé, the man he had recently tried to sell into slavery. Not long thereafter, the three travelled to Kenway's Manor on Great Inagua, where they returned control of the ship to the formerly marooned captain.

Return to piracy, capture and death

Despite his actions, Jack was able to continue his life in Nassau. By 1720, he had become involved with Anne Bonny, a married women who worked at a popular drinking establishment in the settlement. Before long, however, Anne's infidelity was discovered and Jack, unable to buy off Anne's spurned husband, elected to elope with her. Together with James Kidd, now openly acting as Mary Read, Anne and Jack left Nassau and returned to a career as pirates.

At first they did well, capturing a number of small fishing vessels, but within four months of leaving Nassau they were attacked by the Royal Navy. With Jack and his crew passed out from drink, there stood only Anne Bonny, Mary Read and a third man to fight off the Royal Navy. Soon enough, the three were overrun and the vessel captured. Rackham, Bonny and Read were taken to Port Royal, and sentenced to hang for the crime of piracy.

A few weeks after his sentencing, Jack was executed, and his body subsequently placed in a gibbet. The following year he was visited by Edward Kenway who, having escaped his own imprisonment was in the process of assisting in the escape of Mary Read and Anne Bonny. Edward confessed that despite Jack's failings as both a sailor and a friend, it dismayed him to see him in that state.

Gallery

• 
  Concept art of Jack Rackham
• Benjamin Hornigold, Edward Kenway and Jack Rackham
  Benjamin Hornigold, Edward Kenway and Jack Rackham
• 
  Rackham and Vane arguing with Benjamin Hornigold
• 
  Rackham leading the mutiny against Vane

Reference

• Assassin's Creed IV: Black Flag