Choptank River Trip - Pirate’s Treasure

The activities of Roger Makeele and his band of pirates are known from the testimony of their victims, and colonial warrants for their arrest, as recorded in the Maryland and Virginia archives.

Makeele first appears in the Maryland records in January 1685.  Makeele and a small band of thugs, including three from the "Jenckins plantation" on Watts Island, assaulted the crew of a small tobacco-laden sloop.  The crew had put the vessel into an inlet on Watts Island and were sitting by their fire when Makeele and his men appeared from the darkness.  The pirates seized the sloop, kidnapped the crew, and deposited them in marshes on the mainland of Dorchester County.  The captain of the crew recognized Makeele and denounced him before the Maryland authorities.

Makeele and his band attempted to seize another vessel two weeks later -- this time by trying to lure the crew to their camp on Watts Island.  The crew were warned by the captain of a nearby vessel, who reported that he "well knew said Makeele, and perceiving his designe to betray the strangers on shoare, took opportunity to acquaint them of the danger, and practice of said Roger ... whereupon they repaired on board, and gott to Sayle."

Makeele's pirates became more active as the winter progressed.  The not only attacked vessels on the Bay but also stole goods from native Americans on the Eastern Shore, and from some settlers homes on the Western Shore.

By February, authorities at St. Mary's City had issued warrants for the arrest of Makeele and his gang.  In March, the Virginia governor ordered the ketch Quaker and two sloops, under the command of a Captain Allen, to "saile into ye bay and cruze about and search all parts therein for ye aforesaid Roger Makeel and ye other his Complices."

Makeele abandoned Watts Island as his base of operations and retreated to the North Carolina Sounds, a relative haven for local pirates.  Virginia's governor requested law enforcement assistance, but there is no record that Carolina authorities responded.  If Makeele returned to the Chesapeake, he may have been arrested and executed.  Perhaps Virginia's governor referred to him when he reported in late 1685 that "some Pilfering Pyrates have done damage to the Inhabitants, but I have taken the Chiefest and executed them."   (From Archives of Maryland, vol. 17)

After only a few months of piracy on the Bay, Makeele was never mentioned again in the colonial record.  But the pirate legend of Watts Creek lives on -- three centuries later.