The Bahamas continues with their exciting history. After a while the pirates came along. This was called the Age of Piracy. It was during the late 1600s to early 1700s. Lots of famous pirates that just about everyone has heard of used the Bahamas to live, store or bury their "booty" or treasure. Pirates like Blackbeard, Calico Jack and Sir Henry Morgan. There were even two famous women who dressed as men and were pirates. They were Anne Bonny and Mary Read. They both sailed under Calico Jack. At the end of the piracy era Mary died in a prison cell and after Anne gave birth to a son, she disappeared never to be seen again.

Nassau was the perfect place for the pirates and privateers to settle. It was a commercial port been was overran by lawless, pirates and privateers. "Wreckers", were also in Nassau. Wreckers would build false lighthouses to lure in ships just so that they would sink and the treasure would be raided. Nassau was run by pirates for almost 40 years. They love to raid the Spanish galleons. It had gotten so bad that Spanish troops destroyed Nassau in hopes of ending the piracy in 1695. It didn't work, after a couple of years it was rebuilt. It was the pirates and privateers goal to make it the privateering capitol, but because the pirates kept raiding the French and Spanish ships the two navies collaborated and wiped out Nassau for a second time in 1703. However, the pirates were like a bad penny. They kept turning up. It was too easy for them to loot passing cargo ships and it wasn't long before Nassau was again rebuilt.

In 1718 the King of England, tired of complaints of piracy, appointed Woodes Rogers as Royal Governor of the islands and asked him to restore order. He offered amnesty to those who surrendered. The ones who didn't would be sentenced to death. There was a very brief battle with his four battleships and about 300 pirates gave in and the rest fled.