William Hayes (captain)

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Only known photograph by William Henry "Bully" Hayes, 1863

William Hayes , full name William Henry Hayes , best known by the nickname “Bully” Hayes (1828-1832 in Cleveland , Ohio - 1877 ), was a US- born Blackbird , captain and slave trader .

Life

Hayes was born in Cleveland , Ohio between 1828 and 1832 . His father was the innkeeper or inland boatman Henry Hayes, his mother's name is unknown.

He gained his first experience in shipping on the Great Lakes , then he worked as a seafarer on the Pacific . In 1853 he is said to have been hired on the American ship Canton , in 1857 he acquired the ship CWBradley in Singapore by fraudulent means , as the captain of which he appeared in Fremantle , Australia in January 1857 . He married on August 25 of the same year in Penwortham, South Australia , possibly bigamistic , Amelia Littleton, whom he later brought to San Francisco . He then operated in the fraudulent maritime trade between Fremantle and San Francisco. After the stolen ship he Ellentia had fallen, he appeared in 1860 in Sydney , where he because of sexual harassment was accused of a young girl on this ship. The lawsuit was dropped, but the Australian newspaper Empire printed a bitingly critical report of its activities, which was countered by a series of fake letters to the editor to the Sydney Morning Herald . He was due to over-indebtedness in the prison of Darlinghurst imprisoned and released after his bankruptcy declared.

He then sailed with the troupe of the Minstrel Show Glogski and Buckingham to New Zealand , where he polygamistically married Rosa Buckingham. She drowned with her child, brother and nanny in Nelson in August 1864 , only Hayes survived the accident. He sailed on fraudulently acquired ships in the waters of New Zealand for several years until he bought the ship Rona in May 1866 . With Emily Mary Butler, whom he again polygamistically married on July 26, 1865, and their twin daughters, born in 1866, he was involved in ocean trade and blackbirding with this ship . After he lost this ship in the Cook Islands , he teamed up with the American Blackbird Ben Pease on Samoa . He took command of his ship Pioneer and renamed it Leonora . In January 1874 George Lewis Becke hired on his ship in Mili on the Marshall Islands , stayed with his crew for a few months and collected material for his South Sea novels there.

On March 15, 1874, the Leonora was anchored in the Caroline Islands off Kosrae and was destroyed in a storm on a reef. Hayes and the cast managed to get to safety. Supported by some members of the crew and also accompanied by five local women, he opened a trading post there and terrorized the island's residents. When the HMS Rosario reached the island in September 1874 , complaints about his violent behavior were voiced by missionaries , some members of the crew and the local king. In order not to be arrested, Hayes fled with a companion in a small boat. He was picked up by the American whaler Arctic and landed in Guam in February 1875 . After various activities in the Philippines , where he is also said to have been arrested by Spanish authorities, he reappeared in San Francisco. From there he set sail for the last time in October 1876 with the yacht Lotus . He was accompanied by two men and a woman, allegedly the shipowner's wife. In April 1877 there was a confrontation on the ship in front of Jaluit , in the course of which Hayes was killed by a blow with a metal object, after which his body was thrown overboard. When the ship reached Jaluit, authorities were informed of his death. There was never a trial because of his killing. Hayes left a wife and twin daughters in Samoa.

reception

Hayes was known in every port in the Pacific. He first became a legendary figure through Rolf Boldrewood's novel A modern Buccaneer , which was published in 1894 and was based on a manuscript by George Lewis Becke. Becke later set him a literary monument in his own South Sea novels. In the 1983 film Island of the Pirates , original title Nate and Hayes , his fictitiously embellished life story was filmed.

In New Zealand, "Bully" Hayes is a kind of national hero. The online encyclopedia Teara - The Encyclopedia of New Zealand published by the New Zealand Ministry of Culture describes him as an "astute entrepreneur and extremely capable seafarer" with a "powerful figure" and "pleasant baritone voice". He was "courageous, inventive, unswerving in overcoming resistance and capable of a great deal of generosity," and although he was an adulterer, crook and deceiver whose numerous misdeeds had been proven, he was no worse person than the other South Seas captains of the 19th century Century.

All other current sources, however, call him a “criminal on a grand scale” with “unlimited tricks” and an “engaging nature”, he has “left out pretty much no crime - from smuggling to piracy to rape and murder” - and was "perhaps the most colorful personality" among the Europeans and Americans who arrived on the Pacific islands in the 19th century. Through the spread of alcohol and firearms, attacks on local women, robbery and theft, these have contributed to shaking the islanders' trust in foreigners.

literature

  • B. Lubbock: Bully Hayes, South Sea Pirate , London 1931
  • AT Saunders: Bully Hayes , Perth 1932
  • F. Clune: Captain Bully Hayes , Sydney 1970

Sources and web links

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ a b c d T. J. Hearn. 'Hayes, William Henry', Dictionary of New Zealand Biography , first published in 1990. Te Ara - the Encyclopedia of New Zealand , accessed May 12, 2020
  2. ↑ a b c d e f g h i John Earnshaw, 'Hayes, William Henry (Bully) (1829–1877)' , Australian Dictionary of Biography, National Center of Biography, Australian National University
  3. ^ Hermann Mückler: The Marshall Islands and Nauru in German Colonial Times , Berlin 2016, ISBN 978-3-7329-0285-9 , p. 35 f.
personal data
SURNAME Hayes, William
ALTERNATIVE NAMES Hayes, William Henry; Hayes, bully
BRIEF DESCRIPTION American slave trader in Oceania
DATE OF BIRTH between 1828 and 1832
PLACE OF BIRTH Cleveland, Ohio
DATE OF DEATH April 1877
Place of death at Jaluit